beigemore wrote on Sep 1, 2023, 11:47:

Acleacius wrote on Sep 1, 2023, 11:42:
Could the confusion of bethesda, be they are not AAA because of quality but sales due to modding?

I guess I don't know who is AAA or not. Honestly, the last Bethesda game I actually enjoyed was Oblivion, so maybe this game just isn't for me.

Hopefully we will get lucky, the story and adventure will keep it crisp.
Can't imagine, they (much less customers) want another experience like Fallout 76.

From what I saw, they have FSR2 @ 75% render quality, variable rate shading, and dynamic resolution scaling on by default, so the first thing anyone who wants a better image should do is disable those. The film grain effect is also very strong, so probably lessen or disable that, as well. The mod to use DLSS in the game instead was available an hour after launch, for those with NVIDIA cards: https://www.nexusmods.com/starfield/mods/111/

Some of the way the game looks is just their artistic choice, but I'm sure there will be loads of custom ReShade profiles to change up the color pallete soon, like with all of these games. And considering I can count the threads on my companion's leather jacket and clearly read handwritten notes or machinery labeling, I absolutely would not compare anything about it to fucking Doom 3, lol...

This comment was edited on Sep 1, 2023, 12:02.

Acleacius wrote on Sep 1, 2023, 11:42:
Could the confusion of bethesda, be they are not AAA because of quality but sales due to modding?

I guess I don't know who is AAA or not. Honestly, the last Bethesda game I actually enjoyed was Oblivion, so maybe this game just isn't for me.

Could the confusion of bethesda, be they are not AAA because of quality but sales due to modding?

The "HDR" is absolutely garbage and non-existent. Not sure how they think this is ok with a triple-A game based on space travel and exploration... or really just any modern "high end" game.

Playing this on a 5800x3d with 3080ti -- frame rate bounces between 40-70 at 4k. Dropping to 1440 helps a little bit, but the game just looks.... bleh? It's like there is a weird haze over everything even after turning off all motion blur and film grain (why are these the default anyway?). The character models, and especially the textures, are not impressive and look like they were pulled from Doom 3 and then upscaled. The world looks like it's a jpeg with quite a bit of compression. Places where I'd expect to be in complete darkness shows heavy banding from compression. The screen should be black, but on my OLED it is tinged grey/brown. The flashlight amplifies this ugliness.

The keybind setup is pretty bad, as well. The defaults have multiple keys bound to WASD, etc., depending on different scenarios or interfaces you're working with. If you change WASD for main movement, then try to change the other bindings to match these changes (exactly how they do), the game throws all kinds of warnings about multiple overlapping key binds. In the few situations where it doesn't throw the warnings, you can be in one menu, press the key listed at the bottom to, for example, open a menu, and it does something completely different like scroll the view instead of opening the menu. There isn't an obvious way to DELETE a bind, either, so if you screw up once, you have to reset all of them to defaults to undo it.

The gameplay itself seems ok, but it feels bad after having played through Baldur's Gate 3. In the first area, I ran ahead of the starting NPC helper, found a drill, and started mining all the ore I could find before running back to the extremely exciting part of the game where the NPC slow-walk escorts me down what is a straight hallway. Started shooting at the NPC's to see what would happen, and no one really responds. They say ouch and eventually hunch over, but then regenerate and stand back up and act like nothing happened.

I am pretty sure this is what they are talking about when they say don't set baseline expectations around Baldur's Gate 3. With that said, I would return this game if I could, but I've "played" it for more than two hours now after dealing with key bind hell and trying to figure out why HDR looks so bad. Hard pass on this.

If you are having to choose between this and Baldur's Gate 3, BG3 is easily the winner -- in my opinion.

Is there a mod to change the ship into a Dragon, yet?!

Watched about 3 hours of twitch last night as well as a couple reviews and it is exactly what I was expecting.. I think i'll skip this for a year then play it on sale when mods are out.

Prez wrote on Sep 1, 2023, 06:47:

El Pit wrote on Sep 1, 2023, 06:40:

Vio wrote on Sep 1, 2023, 05:54:
I still have to play through fallout 3

FO3 was alright but Fallout: New Vegas is where it's at! FO4 is also fun but New Vegas is hands down the best modern Fallout game IMO.

Modded they are both quite good, although NV is better.

Agreed! NV is only a great game after a good deal of modding (I remember I was astonished at how poor the graphics were before the graphical mods were applied.) Most Bethesda games are deliberately constructed that way, imo. Skyrim was the same. What I find especially disappointing in Starfield so far--at least, according to the reviews--is the really shallow character models! They look like something transported from ten years ago--like barely animate rubber. They are fairly low-quality, which is a shame, because what is the most fun in RPGs?--it's character development and depth!

Some of the Bethesda cut scenes they've released show really good-looking NPCs, but the reviewers haven't much to say about the game's graphics at all, aside from the well-deserved negative comments about the character models. So I wonder what the game looks like at 4k--are the models any better? I should hope so. One reviewer stated he had played the game on X-Box and on PC, but he made no attempt to distinguish between the two! Not a good sign.

Will I have to wait six months or longer before Starfield becomes what it should be? I will wait and see before jumping into this one. I'm still deep into BG3 at the moment. I'm not as patient as I was in 2011 with Skyrim.

VaranDragon wrote on Sep 1, 2023, 05:00:
Currently playing Armored Core VI (really great action\mech\customization game, can't recommend it enough) and BG3. Tentatively looking forward to Starfield, but it's definitely a wait and see from me and whether I end up buying it will depend on reviews from people I trust, and obviously word of mouth reports from the good people on here on Bluesnews.

Same here, except substitute Tears of the Kingdom for Armored Core. BG 3 on Steam Deck is great except for the text being too small for my ancient Ringwraith eyes, so will also be installing it on my regular gaming rig. Word of mouth from Blues and trusted reviewers will determine when (not if) I pick Starfield up - it may wait until I have finished all the gaming goodness currently on hand (including RDR and DoS2 on Switch). But I will definitely get it eventually.

jacobvandy wrote on Sep 1, 2023, 04:29:

GothicWizard wrote on Sep 1, 2023, 00:10:
It's pretty much Fallout 4 in space.

And you were expecting something else?

Did I say I was shocked or surprised? I simply said it as a matter of fact. Nice logical fallacy retort of trying to put words into my mouth.

RogueSix wrote on Sep 1, 2023, 01:37:

El Pit wrote on Sep 1, 2023, 01:35:
Since I did not buy the ultimate version, I will have to wait until next week and you will have the early access beta phase for yourselves, guys.

Bah, won't someone show the peasants the door, please...

Roguesix is going to play as a god-fearing man, spouting scripture and beating non-believers to death with his Bible and crucifix as he searches the galaxy for the evidence of the divine.

The truth is out there!!!

El Pit wrote on Sep 1, 2023, 06:40:

Vio wrote on Sep 1, 2023, 05:54:
I still have to play through fallout 3

FO3 was alright but Fallout: New Vegas is where it's at! FO4 is also fun but New Vegas is hands down the best modern Fallout game IMO.

Modded they are both quite good, although NV is better.

Vio wrote on Sep 1, 2023, 05:54:
I still have to play through fallout 3

FO3 was alright but Fallout: New Vegas is where it's at! FO4 is also fun but New Vegas is hands down the best modern Fallout game IMO.

I still have to play through fallout 3

Currently playing Armored Core VI (really great action\mech\customization game, can't recommend it enough) and BG3. Tentatively looking forward to Starfield, but it's definitely a wait and see from me and whether I end up buying it will depend on reviews from people I trust, and obviously word of mouth reports from the good people on here on Bluesnews.

GothicWizard wrote on Sep 1, 2023, 00:10:
It's pretty much Fallout 4 in space.

And you were expecting something else? The setting and scope may change but it's still a Bethesda RPG, everyone here should know what that means by now whether they're a fan or not... That's right, sifting through thousands of hand-placed objects to find the valuables and constantly over-encumbering yourself because you don't want to leave anything behind. Only now you have the best parts of No Man's Sky mixed in there, too.

El Pit wrote on Sep 1, 2023, 01:35:
Since I did not buy the ultimate version, I will have to wait until next week and you will have the early access beta phase for yourselves, guys.

Bah, won't someone show the peasants the door, please...

Since I did not buy the ultimate version, I will have to wait until next week and you will have the early access beta phase for yourselves, guys.

GothicWizard wrote on Sep 1, 2023, 00:10:
About 90mins into it. It's fine. I am going to return to BG3 and in a week or two return to this. Nothing is really gripping me, what you saw at the showcase is what you get. Not much more or less. It's pretty much Fallout 4 in space. Mostly non-destructible environments which in 2023 is pretty immersion breaking. Very little reacts to being shot aside from NPCs, lifeforms. I am sure given a few more hours it would pick up but the strange alien artifact w/ powers troupe has been done to death sci-fi wise IMO. None of the systems seems especially deep, as least so far. We'll see when I get back into it down the road I suppose. Only other thing that stuck out is fast travel is their main way to get around. It's used pretty much everywhere. And some of the facial textures look badly down scaled, mainly the eye textures looks so fake it's jarring.

I figured, with this being Beth, that this would be a wait-and-see. Your description feels like a pass for me.

About 90mins into it. It's fine. I am going to return to BG3 and in a week or two return to this. Nothing is really gripping me, what you saw at the showcase is what you get. Not much more or less. It's pretty much Fallout 4 in space. Mostly non-destructible environments which in 2023 is pretty immersion breaking. Very little reacts to being shot aside from NPCs, lifeforms. I am sure given a few more hours it would pick up but the strange alien artifact w/ powers troupe has been done to death sci-fi wise IMO. None of the systems seems especially deep, as least so far. We'll see when I get back into it down the road I suppose. Only other thing that stuck out is fast travel is their main way to get around. It's used pretty much everywhere. And some of the facial textures look badly down scaled, mainly the eye textures looks so fake it's jarring.