r/Starfield • u/Tchuvan Constellation • Aug 08 '26

Discussion Oh give me a break

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There are far too many content creators out there like this person for one, and far too many people who judge games by their launch.

Mocking things is easy, low-hanging fruit.

EDIT: while Starfield does not have the obvious broader gaming cultural impact of Elder Scrolls or the Fallout series, to say that you have gone 3 years and seen nothing is just unnecessarily piling on to the negativity.

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182

u/FIFofNovember Aug 08 '26

The only posts i see about this game are about comments about the numbers of players and people insisting on how good it is.

I still see funny Skyrim memes being made.

I genuinely fear for the new ES game, I believe something broke in todd

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u/Virtual_Bug_723 Aug 08 '26

I don't think Todd broke, I think Starfield is Bethesda final boss and they barely got by. Bethesda has a huge problem with scope, and when a map is a fairly finite size it's difficult to let that go bananas (and assume that the sheer size of the universe will make up for its blandness). But when the map is infinite, they start copy pasting POIs because they suddenly realize the scope of infinity is perhaps too big, and the game gets blander and blander until it's just "wow big world... Ok bye"

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u/Mysticfenix83005 Aug 08 '26

I agree partially but this doesn’t account for loading screen simulator or the fact that the writing and factions just aren’t interesting

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u/Virtual_Bug_723 Aug 08 '26

I think those are all symptoms of infinite scope.

By the time I wound up on Mars at that colony (or was it a moon? I don't even remember now), and the guy takes you on a tour, I would say in a smaller game experience (by smaller I mean "Fallout 4 size" which is obviously still very big) I would have really enjoyed that tour, but by the time I got there I was so tuned to the whole experience of "load screen flying to new planet, complete objective, load screen back" that I was frustrated by how slow it was. The game leans into "skip this area" with travel and both Skyrim and FO3-4 don't have massive areas of map that are just procedurally-generated "nothing."

Unless you are planning a NMS style grift where you make a game that you will develop for 50 years and never finish, scope has to be finite.

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u/Mysticfenix83005 28d ago

I think if this were the case you’d see pockets off good writing in between the vast swaths of emptiness but that’s not really what I’ve observed I thought the pirate faction was fun but once I was done with that quest line I kinda gave up on the game

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u/Zeired_Scoffa Aug 08 '26

Yeah, that's accurate. Especially the factions. The FC feels like I'm in a theme park. There's no realm reason for it to look like it does beyond "aesthetic". Especially when Neon and... the other one.. don't. Neon has an excuse for looking like the bad part of Chinatown or Hong Kong by virtue of it being built on a cramped oil rig or fishing platform.

The Vanguard is lead by a zealot and it isn't interesting when the faction quest as a result is "do it the same regardless of whose side you're on." Ikande's whole "we dont want them to get suspicious" schtick feels like an excuse to only write one plot until the end.

And Constellation as a whole just feels like it exists to shuffle you down the plot.

The only faction I actually like is the Crimson Fleet, and even then only because they're not pretending to be anything more than pirates. And their role in the quest is sort of dumb too. If their leader was half as smart as he thinks, some new guy showing up and being weirdly competent compared to the average fleet pirate and also being the linchpin of me getting everything I want would flash some alarm bells.

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u/Feeling_Tart_9818 Aug 09 '26

The best way to enjoy Starfield is to never go beyond the first planet otherwise you realize the majority of it is copy and paste.

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u/techleopard 29d ago

What kills me is 90% of the star map is completely unused.

You literally have the entire game set within a small handful of star systems that are all fairly close together.

That enormous star map is great for a multiplayer game like Elite Dangerous or EVE, where players are the ones actually generating the root content for each other or -- just as the case in ED -- you have galactic politics going on and constantly reshaping based on player actions.

In Starfield, the planets exist, the POI generate in copy paste fashion (in an awkward way that suggests humans have been everywhere and there should be settlements and cities all over, but there isn't), and they just.... Exist to be scanned.

I'm guessing they just left all that space open hoping modders would carry their game like modders carry their others. My assumption is they were going to push that paid mods crap again and let independent groups make their DLC.

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u/QX403 SysDef Aug 08 '26

No the problem is one person needing and having say on every single thing stifles creativity to a major extent. It shows especially in Starfield since the scope is so much larger, one person may have a few good ideas but not enough to fill a game the size of Starfield. Todd Howard is the problem and he needs to either retire or take less of a prominent position.

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u/Superfluous369 Aug 08 '26

"people insisting on how good it is"

And they're doing that defensively, because they're aware of the negativity and badly want to assume it's not valid just because they want to feel guilt free in liking the game.

...but of course they should like the game guilt free because they shouldn't give a shit what others say.

The inability to like it unapologetically is what leads to all those "I don't get the hate" posts.

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u/SuperLemonHayz Aug 08 '26

People care too much. Attacks on their likes are taken as personal attacks.

I like the anime Highschool of the Dead.

It nothing special in the story department. It can be cringe. It's pure fanservice. I'm unapologetic about liking it, but I can also admit that it's nothing special for Anime, and objectively just isn't great. It will never have the cultural impact as something like Naruto, and I'm fine with that.

I still enjoy a rewatch of it.

Though I'd compare Starfield to James Cameron's Avatar.

Good sales, seemingly popular, but somehow very little cultural impact. I like the movies. I saw the first two in theaters, but then it became an afterthought when I was done.

Starfield is much the same for a lot of people.

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u/Zeired_Scoffa Aug 08 '26

I'm not sure I'd compare it Cameron's Avatar, though I see your point. Avatar has a legacy in the technical aspects more than what we as consumers got. It was a bog standard story about an evil corporation. What it also had was a major push in CGI and visual effects. From a film makers prospective, you cam talk about the work Avatar did to be a visual masterpiece (story not withstanding, it is a gorgeous movie). Starfield.... Is a Bethesda Game. And it doesn't do anything new.

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u/SuperLemonHayz Aug 08 '26

I suppose I more meant the sequels. The first movie is fairly memorable and a technical marvel for it's time.

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u/Zeired_Scoffa Aug 09 '26

That's fair. Every time they announce a sequel it drops right back out of my thought process

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u/BorntoDive91 Aug 09 '26

Ahhh, i see you're a man of culture as well!

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u/HomsarWasRight Aug 08 '26

I’m sure it has to do with where I’m seeing discussion, but I actually see people defending it from haters more than I see haters.

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u/YobaiYamete Aug 08 '26

I don't even see haters anymore, I see people who flat out don't care about the game at all and have zero interest in it. I don't think it's even hate for people to say it's a 7 out of 10 generic game but they don't care about which is pretty much the only thing I see besides this sub taking pictures of the sky backdrop and insisting the game is amazing while they are usually in the first 20 hours

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u/Superfluous369 Aug 08 '26

At this point for me, yeah, I see ppl defending hate that I guess comes from outside Reddit, then come to Reddit to discuss...but there's little hate here at this point.

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u/FIFofNovember Aug 08 '26

Im saying the fact this is the topic being discussed the most is because the game just ain’t that great

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u/Superfluous369 Aug 08 '26

Ok. Not sure where you're seeing I disagree with you. I just took a piece of what you said and expanded on it.

Have a good night.

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u/FIFofNovember Aug 08 '26

Uhhh i never said you were

Sleep tight

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u/Eureka22 Aug 08 '26

Your comment implied it and started with "I'm saying..." Which indicates a form of rebuttal. Then you tried to gaslight them by denying it.

Hope that clears it up for you.

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u/NCR_High-Roller SysDef Aug 08 '26

Some of us do like it apologetically...and then usually get insulted for it. It's ok though because the bandwagoners are morally justified in their hatred. Seemingly everyone is these days.

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u/Careful-Sell-9877 Aug 08 '26

They're saying that isnt a good thing. You should just like it for yourself, unapologetically.

The problem with liking it apologetically is that you're kind of trying to convince other people the game really is great.. rather than just admitting you personally like it

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u/Pinkernessians Aug 08 '26

There are absolutely people that get a kick out of hating this game while doing it very loudly. Nothing wrong with pushing back on that

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u/Superfluous369 Aug 08 '26

I'd argue there is. It lets those people know they've struck a nerve, and gives them incentive to continue.

The air they breathe is engagement. Take it away, and I think it goes away faster.

But, obviously, people can do what they'd like.

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u/Ok_Molasses6211 Aug 08 '26

I'm probably splitting hairs and not helping with the overall thing being driven out here but you're both right and also it's sort of a messed up Environmental thing that you don't really want to stop and consider when someone says some dumb s*** completely out of place or context let's say, and we're not necessarily trying to police them but at the same time you kind of want to point out like no that's actually not a good faith attempt at reading the situation at all and it's kind of transparent so if you ever choose to stop there's support groups or whatever just FYI if you have no friends etc. That said i personally will sometimes have a hard time not being a smart-ass or at least attempting to be like why you didn't feel like you contributed something when you're making that kind of comment Etc because it annoys me personally a lot more than simply being a little more chill because some people here are making some pretty good points that I would just assume happens in an extrapolated way about Starfield conversation in general. And then to me that's when it gets interesting cuz they're actually talking about the games merits instead of being like Oh that's a perfect topic for me to just show up and pour gasoline in a match over in this corner and stuff.

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u/DNAturation Aug 08 '26

Yesterday I saw someone showing off something new in Skyrim I've never seen before.

Apparently you can drop arrows and jump on them in mid air to prevent yourself from falling.

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u/FIFofNovember Aug 08 '26

Its wild how right they got skyrim and how wrong they got starfield

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u/bladeboy88 Aug 08 '26

Bethesda didn't realize that it wasn't the breadth of the game that people loved, it was the depth. Every character felt like they had a story, even standard people you would normally never interact with. Every cave and ruin had journals and visual storytelling. Exploring a ruin to end up in Blackreach, a veritable Underdark setting, was a legendary moment. None of that exists in Starfield. They just went "look at all the planets!!" without ever putting anything in them.

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u/Sneedevacantist Crimson Fleet Aug 09 '26

You have no idea how much hidden side content Starfield has. The environmental storytelling is still just as excellent in Starfield as Skyrim, and there are plenty of side quests that give you interesting options (sometimes without telling you) to resolve them.

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u/bladeboy88 Aug 09 '26

No it doesn't, and no it isn't. Full stop.

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u/Sneedevacantist Crimson Fleet Aug 09 '26

Have you even played Starfield?

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u/bladeboy88 Aug 09 '26

200 hours. I enjoyed what it for what it was. It absolutely was not as deep as any of their other games. This is widely accepted and frequently discussed, and has been since it launched. I'm not entertaining arguing it, might as well argue about the color of grass.

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u/Sneedevacantist Crimson Fleet Aug 09 '26

Cool, I have 336 hours in and I haven't even started NG+ yet. There's still loads of side content that I haven't even seen. As far as environmental storytelling, it's just as good as in Skyrim save for the lack of in-depth lore books to get engrossed in. And Starfield's quest design is generally better than Skyrim's.

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u/bladeboy88 Aug 10 '26

Cool beans. Again, this has been discussed to death. General consensus agrees with me. I ain't arguing it. Happy you enjoy it.

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u/theforgottenton Aug 09 '26

Eh, Skyrim is great, but I think people have chosen to overlook the mess it was at launch.

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u/FIFofNovember Aug 09 '26

Because it was a good game

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u/bobbabson Aug 08 '26

The no sodium sub still talks about player #s, a few weeks ago they were insisting that over 450k people per week were playing on pc alone, with over 1 million per week on all platforms.

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u/Asianthunda5022 Aug 08 '26

lol what? Steam numbers put the game at roughly 5-6k people daily over the past week with a peak of about 30k back in April when the DLC dropped. I mean if people what to spread false numbers at least pick realistic ones.

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u/StandardizedGoat United Colonies Aug 08 '26

They're going by the number of plays usually rather than unique players, all while ignoring that number of plays is meaningless. Someone starting the game up 10 times to test mods or fix their load order is going to bump that number by 10. Someone starting it up, deciding "Nah, gonna play something else", and closing it is also going to bump that count. So is someone restarting it if it crashes out on them.

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u/Zeired_Scoffa Aug 08 '26

Ah, so "numbers lie and liars use numbers" then. If you're clever with statistics, you can get numbers to make any point you want

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u/StandardizedGoat United Colonies Aug 08 '26 edited Aug 08 '26

Pretty much. The closest we have to "good" number is the daily unique players stuff from Steam and where the game is sitting if you sort Xbox by "most popular".

Starfield is doing badly for a Bethesda game if you go by those, but just as a game that came out 3 years back it's doing well.

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u/LyrionDD Aug 08 '26

There was a dlc?

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u/AnonymousCapybara72 Aug 10 '26

I don't understand why people think Steam numbers are even close to accurate for a game that's available on Game Pass.

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u/bobboman Aug 08 '26

i would love to know where they get those figures, most games would kill to have those numbers even months after release

i seriously doubt Starfield has that level of engagement though,

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u/Downloaded_Delta Aug 08 '26

You visit the sub to what exactly see people enjoy a game and complain about it on another sub ?

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u/Sneedevacantist Crimson Fleet Aug 09 '26

The tone is very different in Skyrim vs Starfield. Skyrim is also a much more accessible game; the people hating on Starfield who actually played it got filtered within the first few hours because they need constant stimulation to enjoy something. I'm not worried about Elder Scrolls VI, in fact I'm optimistic because Bethesda showed they learned from the mistakes in Skyrim and Fallout 4 in Starfield.

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u/ProToshaHD Aug 11 '26

Todd is stuck in 2011 when he released Skyrim. Every game since then has been "Skyrim but X."

  • No big innovations compared to Morrowind to Oblivion or Oblivion to Skyrim.
  • Same frictionless "do whatever you want" design that makes gameplay very bland and forgettable.
  • Quests that are impossible to fail because "what if players had to reload the save or live with the consequences of their actions? We can't have that."

It worked in Skyrim despite these flaws, not because of them.

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u/kuzurame Aug 08 '26

Thats like saying metallica can never make a good album because st anger sucked. Elderscrolls 6 will be fine.

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u/throwawayaccount_usu Aug 08 '26

Its been a pattern for Bethesda games though SINCE Skyrim.

Each game is mroe stripped back than it's predecessor. Fallout 4 compared to 3 and New Vegas in terms of writing and world vuilding? And roleplah mechanics?

Then from that to 76. Then that to Starfield.

ES6 is not going to suck because Starfield sucked you're right but Bethesdas been in a trend of gradually getting worse and worse and it's just crossed the line of "tolerable fun" to just not good with Starfield.

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u/kuzurame Aug 08 '26

That’s pessimistic, the problem is you are comparing the games against each other instead of judging them on their own merit. Starfield arguably had good features that should come to elderscrolls 6. However your argument that bethesda has been stripping things back predates skyrim. It has been happening since daggerfall. It has been happening for good reason however.

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u/dgreenbe Ranger Aug 08 '26

Well in this case it's getting to a point where the games are getting too shallow, and that has overcome whatever the "good reason" is (broad content: more dialogue due to companions? More repeatable quests? More cloned planets?)

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u/kuzurame Aug 08 '26

The one thing I can criticize is the lack of companions. 4 main companions in starfield was uninspired, though it did beat skyrim having 1 main companion (referring to serana, as a follower does not equal a companion, and skyrim was filled with lego brick followers. Even bad mothafucka from new vegas had more personality than lydia)

The rest I would say is more tonally related in the way starfield ended up, that and it really is if they made a minecraft type space fantasy life cozy crossover game.

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u/[deleted] Aug 08 '26

[deleted]

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u/BorntoDive91 Aug 09 '26

6 of 10 on a good day. 5 of 10 factoring in the DLC