Haven’t played Starfield yet, but comparing a small handrcafted world to a huge procedural generated world is like comparing a single screenshot from a movie to a single realistic painting. It doesn’t mean that Starfield is good, just that it’s not a fair comparison.
On the other hand, using procedural generation should free up a bunch of dev time that you could than be using to make sure the models that the generation uses are quality.
Now comparing individual features, elex looks better, while starfield should be better looking. Since they used procedural generation and should have used that time saved crafting hand crafted worlds making their base models better.
It’s more than an apt comparison, if you look at what they want you to compare.
On the other hand, using procedural generation should free up a bunch of dev time that you could than be using to make sure the models that the generation uses are quality.
This is a city. The one you go to frequently for the main questline. It’s a whole other level of fucked if you’re procedurally generating the core locations in your game without ‘handcrafting’ over it. Looking like this is inexcusable and it still crippling my computer is an insult.
There’s no excuse for not improving the water system since they released Skyrim. With that budget, it should’ve been doable. I mean, look at that. It looks like sewage.
Minecraft with shaders running on my mediocre PC looks 11x better than on starfield. i don’t care though since i don’t spend time around much water. friggin love the game so far
Not all of Starfield is randomly generated. This specific example is from one of the main big cities that are definitely hand built. The random stuff is mostly deserts and outposts like what players can build. So even according to your standards, this is a correct and legitimate comparison.
I’m enjoying Starfield, but it isn’t perfect by any means. I have to ask though, is the bottom screenshot from an area that is meant to be normally seen by the player? Because if it isn’t, they should be toning down the graphics as part of optimizing performance. I guess it’s not really a valid point either though, because Starfield’s performance is terrible.
It took me a whole week of mucking about and bugtesting just to get the game to run without crashing every couple of minutes. It’s bizarre to me how attached some people seem to be to the idea that the game is up to the standard we expected (not saying you are, but just look at some of the comments that have been downvoted)
Well in my case it is up to the standard, because it’s run perfectly fine for me. I installed it, and have been running it on high graphics with no crashes, and only minor positioning bugs.
So you and I have had very different experiences with the game.
The nature of PCs I guess. I ran it on an i9 12900k, 2070s GPU, 48gb ram, m2 SSD, xbox gamepass and had no end of troubles. Even once I got it running, a majority of quests (inc main quests) were bugged to the point I had to use console commands to get past the bugs.
I’m by far not the only one. People were crashing on console! That’s insane. We now pay to be bugtesters.
Yeah, I have a Ryzen 5600X, 32 GB Ram, Radeon 5700 XT, installed on an SSD, and gamepass as well. I’ve had no issues, other than a single spinning spaceship, and my follower getting stuck on a doorframe temporarily.
Crazy the variety of experiences.
And crashing on consoles I just expect now, devs are making games way too demanding for base level consoles.
Do you notice the difference between our systems? Yours is AMD cpu / AMD gpu, mine is intel cpu / nvidia gpu. We know AMD worked with BGS to some extent to make sure Starfield was well-optimised for their gear. I had a bit of a paranoid moment during my struggles to get it running that BGS had deliberately not optimised the game for non-AMD components and this info does not assuage my paranoia haha.
You're correct, you normally are walking around up on top of and past the top of that waterfall. You're allowed to go down there, but there's nothing to find or see.
The performance has markedly improved for me after the first patch, I now only dip below 60 FPS in cities on an RTX 3060, could still be better, though, as that's with most settings on low.
I'm getting a locked 60 everywhere except the three city planets and only in areas there where combat doesn't happen, so it's not impeding my gameplay, but it is noticeable. And I do have some settings above low, just the major ones like shadows and such are on low.
But my other main gaming platform is the Switch, so I'm quite accepting of low or unstable framerates, or even games that don't look their best. I can personally accept it since there aren't any other games that combine the genres this one does, but it's... not good.
But my other main gaming platform is the Switch, so I’m quite accepting of low or unstable framerates
Which is fine, it’s okay to be accepting of lower frame rates when they’re acceptable. Like, if you had a 2060 or maybe a 2070 then fair enough. But you have a 3060 and aren’t even getting a locked 60 across the board when at low settings. A 30 series card shouldn’t be struggling so much when at low settings, period.
It’s one thing to physically be okay with lower frame rates, and another to overlook an unoptimized game. I can live with lower frame rates too, but this is still unacceptable.
Personally with Bethesda, I'm more upset about Fallout 4. I like that game more than Starfield, but even though it's older, it runs worse in the city with all the debris, shadows, and NPCs in a dense location. And I fight things there.
Or Oblivion, where even to this day I can't fully get rid of the stuttering when loading world chunks, because the damn game bottlenecks itself.
I think it is unacceptable. I love those other games much more for what they did at the time, and with what they offered to me, I found the technical issues acceptable to get that niche fix. With Starfield, I still like it to an extent, but this'll be the last time I trust off the bat that Bethesda will back up their flaws with a worthy enough overall package.
Yes, it’s an area in Atlantis that you visit as part of the romance questline with Sarah. Bethesda hasn’t changed a lot in the water system since Skyrim and I believe it’s laughable in 2023 for a game that costs 99$.
So you’re saying its an area that isn’t meant to be normally seen. Some players may see it once in a play through, and only if they romance Sarah. That’s the exact definition of not normally seen.
A completely optional mission, in a completely optional romance line, that you only see once should you choose that one romance quest out of the options. Normally seen in a game is something like the New Atlantis Spaceport, which every player sees multiple times in a playthrough.
Though I do agree, I did that romance, and was certainly underwhelmed by the waterfall.
This is not a great argument unless you are very deep into pretending a game company can do no wrong.
There are lots of ways this is silly to claim is fine, it’s ridiculous to act like this is expected or acceptable and not just amateurish lack of polish.
But it’s okay, you can still enjoy the game. It’s okay to enjoy things which have flaws.
Are you seriously excusing shit waterfall mechanics/graphics game wide because this one particular view is only forced on you once in a certain situation?
Some people are really pissed because I posted a shitty meme, it really is ridiculous. But I guess when you spend up to a hundred bucks on a 6/10 RPG that was hyped-up like crazy you need to vent all of this frustration somewhere…
The memes not shitty, people just ignore stuff for whatever justifications they can come up. If you can view it once, why should it be a different quality than something you see 100x? It’s a bloody water effect, there should be zero difference.
Change the what item it is and it shouldn’t change anything either.
I still enjoy the game, even with it’s shitty waterfall.
Just want to say, that I did so, too! It’s not a bad game at all, but it could’ve been better in so many ways. Writing, game mechanics, world building…
My comment says I agree the waterfall is shitty, did you miss that part?
And no, I’m not incorrect, when a person asks if it is a normally viewed part of the game, that means viewed commonly by everyone. The waterfall is not a normally viewed part of the game.
It is shitty, and it shouldn’t be, but it is not normally viewed by most players.
There is no part of any game that is “viewed by everyone” unless it’s a scripted part of the game.
There’s some doors in skyrim I never entered. So by your weird logic, that interior in whiterun wouldn’t be a normally viewed part of the game.
Do you understand how asinine of a viewpoint that is now? Not normally viewable would be boundary breaking or a weird location you would only enter to look for loot or something.
Nope, you’re wrong. When something is down a completely optional, hidden side questline, that you can only get to if you keep Sarah as a follower, and do her whole questline, it not normally viewable.
What, maybe a couple percent of players may end up there? Yet everyone is going to see the spaceport, and the lodge. Those are normally viewable areas.
And not every part of the spaceport is going to be viewed by everyone that visits it… your argument falls apart using your own logic. So no we aren’t wrong, you are.
You realize more than just me have called you out on this… yeah?
Right, but you just said the spaceport IS normally viewed. And no it’s not like that. A table in a room isn’t suddenly not “normally viewed” since only 5 players looked at while another table the NPC was sitting at 100.
The one that says you can go down there anytime and it’s not actually part of a specific mission like you also claimed? Because that doesn’t help your case and has less upvotes than other comments calling you out lmfao.
Your comment is also newer and has more downvotes than it does upvotes. What do you think that’s supposed to prove…?
They don’t even have DLSS support, the modders had to fix it. Added to that, the terrible inventory system which modders also had to fix…a ton of loading screens between small sections because the engine can’t handle more…constantly running out of oxygen and the stupid grind for unlocking more skills…
I had my fun with Starfield, but it’s an average game, not more.
I was confused at first as well, but they are both comparing waterfalls. The problem is that the waterfall in the bottom picture is so ugly (just a bunch of grey) that at first I didn’t even recognize it as such.
Starfield is just a mess. I think Todd assumed he could ride the Skyrim goodwill into the sunset with his subsequent games because he’s consistently failed to deliver since then. I love the jank of a good Bethesda game because at its heart you have a true rpg that lets you roam and complete quests how you see fit. Starfield removed the roaming and the exploration and left some very mediocre storytelling and quests in its wake. Without that magic you’re just left with increasingly awful jank that can’t be ignored.
Thank god for Xbox game pass, I was only out about 15 dollars and was able to try the game without committing 70 dollars.
Starfield removed the roaming and the exploration and left some very mediocre storytelling and quests in its wake.
There are some great sidequests in Starfield. I started the game by just playing side quests and completely ignoring the main ones and it was awesome. I loved the Ryujin questline because I had a sneak-build and it was nice to just not be seen and wreak havoc. The one about the 200 year old starship and the AI ship were also pretty good.
But then I did the Sarah romance questline which was written like a fanfiction by a twelve year old…and continued doing the main quests which were just like Skyrim in space. Starborn…Dragonborn…ugh.
The first 40 hours were a solid 8/10 for me. Once I started doing the main quests, it dropped to 3/10. And the loading screens are just annoying after a while.
Same. I’d have been very disappointed if I paid full price, at £7.99 I don’t feel hard done by. It’s a decent game but Bethesda should be capable of so much better considering the time & money spent on the game.
I disagree that Starfield doesn’t let you explore like the other Bethesda games, it’s more like if you took the map of FO4, took 10% of each section and spread it across 10+ different planets. All of the content is still there…it’s just disconnected and feels barren because if you turn away from the pretty sections they made, there’s nothing around it. I don’t mind the storytelling, but the most of the quests are rough. If these quests were in any other game, the game would be considered generic and forgotten in a week. Also, the space combat is junk. I don’t know what good space combat looks like, but this isn’t it. It’s not rewarding, and I dread any time I encounter it.
I love the ship building aspect, but then I never truly get to use it. Feels like a waste. Also when you finally find a planet with life and do a survey, all of the buildings you go into on the way are buildings you’ve already seen and cleared. Enemies in the same spots. Items in the same spots. I love exploring in games and here its like… okay I guess ill just mine the same three rocks while I run 800m to a location that never seems to pay off. Sure would be nice if I could fly my dope ship over the horizon instead
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