Todd Howard: “You may need to upgrade your PC for this game”
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.
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.
maybe it’s supposed to be sewage
I wouldn’t think that the city on the planet where the screenshot was made (and I don’t remember the name) was procedurally generated
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.
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.
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.
To be fair I don’t think the focus of Bethesda games has ever been on graphics
Instead they just fucked performance for no reason?
I would imagine the performance hit comes more from the simulation complexity, afaik Bethesda games tend to simulate everything all the time so the bigger the worlds get the more power is required
Can someone explain what’s going on? I’m not sure I follow.
A six year old game for 1% of the nominal cost looks better
I see. I was confused because they’re both ugly screenshots. It’s not like the top image is Batman Arkham Knight or something.
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.
I was confused because they’re both ugly screenshots.
Something must be wrong with your eyes then. Elex looks really solid for a small-budget game that’s six years old.
Elex is one of the most un-fun games I’ve ever played. Sure, it looked nice. But that doesn’t help with weak gameplay and bad writing.
Funny. I feel the exact same about starfield
I haven’t played Starfield - Bethesda open-world games are generally not my thing. Throw procgen into the mix and I’m out.
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.
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.
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$.
So you’re saying its an area that isn’t meant to be normally seen. Some players may see it once in a play through, and only if they romance Sarah. That’s the exact definition of not normally seen.
That’s the exact definition of not normally seen.
No it’s not. You visit this area during a mission and you can visit it every time you land on Atlantis, which is the main hub city of the game.
Added to that, the whole point of Sarah bringing you here is to look at how beautiful this place is, which is ridiculous when you look at it. :D
A completely optional mission, in a completely optional romance line, that you only see once should you choose that one romance quest out of the options. Normally seen in a game is something like the New Atlantis Spaceport, which every player sees multiple times in a playthrough.
Though I do agree, I did that romance, and was certainly underwhelmed by the waterfall.
This is not a great argument unless you are very deep into pretending a game company can do no wrong.
There are lots of ways this is silly to claim is fine, it’s ridiculous to act like this is expected or acceptable and not just amateurish lack of polish.
But it’s okay, you can still enjoy the game. It’s okay to enjoy things which have flaws.
Did I say it was acceptable? No, I said it was underwhelming.
What I’m arguing is it is not a normally viewed part of the game, because the vast majority of players will never see it.
99 buckaroos? Are we playing the same game?
Premium Edition is 99$ on Steam, yes.
Take a look at the water graphics in Remnant 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeY63Sf1lnQ
iNfLaTiOn
Finally spotted one in the wild! Starts at 14:19 if the link doesn’t properly work.
I get what he’s saying but I didn’t post this to shit on the game (because I actually enjoyed it). This is a fun meme community and some die-hard fans are taking this waaay too seriously.
He’s also saying “Starfield can’t have the same amount of microdetail everywhere” because of it’s scope and that is certainly true…but water looks really bad throughout the whole game. I wouldn’t call that “micro” ;) Bethesda clearly didn’t put enough resources into this or maybe they had problems implementing better water into the game engine.
I think the problem is that you’ve made a very compelling argument. It’s not a meme. I have zero experience with either if these games and I’m convinced Starfield won’t be interesting to play for years.
Both are great games to pick up for like $10 I assume. I have not played either.
Don’t go chasing waterfalls
OP, I think what this commenter is trying to say is: please compare the rivers and the lakes that we’re used to…
I know that they’re going to have it their way, or nothing at all…
Ah, got’cha.
