14:34 The fundamental parts of the game are just fine, it’s Bethesda’s failure to “stick-the-landing” that seems to hurt Starfield the most. Here’s some easy examples of this trend:
1. Why did Starfield launch without the REV-8, who thought that was the play??
2. Why isn’t it possible to “lose the Lodge” and have it be destroyed by the Hunter?
3. Why are so many NPCs essential/ un-killable?
4. Why’s the Criminal Underbelly in Starfield so cartoonish?
5. So like, no Companion condones crime or murder… like, at all Bethesda? Even though you’ve had the Dark Brotherhood and Morag Tong in previous titles?
6. Why is the Tracker’s Alliance Faction incomplete [and why are missions for sale]?
7. Why is there no Spacewalking in the Vanilla game?
8. Why is so much of the customization in Starfield in the Creations Store?
9. Why aren’t there any Pets in the Vanilla game, like in the promo material?
10. Why are most of the Natural Hazards on many of the planets ‘Ambient’?
11. Why were most of the original Mission Board Quests so generic?
12. Why do so many of the NPCs in this game have the same Hairstyles (dude, it’s 2025)!?
13. Why are the current Survival Mechanics in-game so bare-bones (well-fed or starving, no in-between, really, in 2025 we’re doing this)?
14. Seriously Bethesda, no mini-games at the Red Mile Casino, like… at all?
15. Almost every classic Bethesda fan knows what NPC ‘sandboxing’ is at this point, so you’re saying it was too much to ask to give members of Constellation their own custom sandboxing behavior? So Sarah Morgan’s just gonna sweep floors huh?
16. So you mean to tell me that after a decade of previous titles, Mods and games inspired by Todd and gang, there’s still only ‘one’ way to start Quests in your 2023 title, no Character overlap, no Faction overlap, even though Skyrim did it within the first 8 hours of gameplay? Really? In 2025? Okay, bet!!

*[insert John Travolta being lost meme here]* …most of the stuff wrong with Starfield are stupid oversights that seem intentional to me. Basically, they just need to add-in the “REV-8 Version” of [insert stupid, under-baked mechanic here] akin to walking across barren planets for hours. All the other ‘fluff’ can come later IMHO.
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1716740/discussions/0/592888028698029204/?ctp=2#c592888028698046106

06:05 …it is oddly common, just how many elements that make a Bethesda game ‘special’ are suspiciously missing from Starfield. This is one attribute I hadn’t considered, the amount of missing “cinematic set pieces” in a game where they’d be extremely easy to set-up/ pull off (so many large, titanic objects/ creatures and locations). Now that you mention it, this could’ve been done with the first meeting of the Starborn, this could’ve been done with the Temples, could’ve been done with some of the mission that start in space… I could keep going.

One great example is the DOOM Mission DLC, there’s a good number of cinematic moments that were ‘snuck’ into gameplay on-the-fly. Finding the S.O.S. Ship is pretty cinematic, especially the tension built up by the Captain’s Logs, and the parts where the Aliens dart-past entryways, only to ambush the player from odd angles; yet very little of this is in the Shattered Space DLC, where it’ve fit perfectly!

We need more space dungeons and space activities. I want to be able to build my own space star yard, set up vendors, casino, and have other ships dock at my star yards and buy and sell stuff.

I wish your character had narration, I feel so connected to the role play/character to when you can hear your own character talk, just like Mass Effect including other Bethester games, I feel kinda disconnected and feel after a few play throughs I’m hardly even paying attenchion to my responses at times and you only hear what your character sounds like until you get through the unity… and its like oh.. that’s what I sound like…?

Crimson, you misspelled Bethesda as “Betheada”

They shouldn’t have gotten rid of radiant AI

I’ll say that, for better or worse, Starfield gives off the impression of lacking passion, of everything being slightly dull and lifeless. You can feel the ‘designed by committee’ aspect permeating the game, where the bare elements are there but are sorely lacking in being fleshed out and explored to the point of becoming interesting. It’s like the employees were given a checklist to complete of things representing past Bethesda games but lack the passion and drive that made those things of interest in the first place.

I don’t have to worry about the boring Crimson fleet mission anymore. I haven’t been able to get it to trigger for three play throughs. I can get as far as meeting Neva, but when I go to take out the snitch at Europa to join the fleet, the ship will not spawn. like I said on my third play through and it just will not spawn.

I’ve read comments comparing “Skyrim’s” different locations (dungeons, ruins, caves) to amusement park rides. Things often feel disjointed and compartmentalized.

There is even less of a sense of cohesion between individual locations and questlines in “Starfield”. The challenge is inherent to a game of outer space exploration. Nevertheless, the threads of “Starfield’s” overarching narrative could have remedied this to some extent.

Generally speaking, few diagetic elements exist in situ which reinforce the storyline’s broad strokes.

If by “set piece” you mean those bits where they steal camera and movement control from you, and make you just sit there and watch while stuff happens around you? I personally don’t find that immersive — it literally puts my participation with the game on pause — and I’m perfectly fine with Starfield not having too many of them.

There’s ONE good space battle in the game its crazy

Starfield is not Skyrim or Fallout 4. Starfield is a Space Sim. What the hell are you talking about? Just a rambling mess.

Starfield is my second favorite. Morrowind will always be my favorite.

The game would have been good if there was exploration like the elder scrolls and fallout. There was none of that. The game world looked similar but there was virtually no exploration. A lot of going straight here and there gor tasks but never stumbling onto or into anything exciting.

We need ship radar dishes for the ships that would be cool think millennium falcon etc and what would be cool is an alien xenomorph dlc either on a ship or on a planet

Bethesda want to support Starfield for the next 10 years so they will keep adding stories and lore to the game. The Vanilla story doesn’t have really an ending and shattered space also ends in cliffhanger for a faction storyline maybe the story continues in future Expansions

The problem with “set pieces” in terms of giant ships like the Prydwen is how you spend most of your time in interior cells for story missions, and even when there is a big ship like UC Vigilance or ECS Constant, you explore from within instead of being taken-away by its scale from the outside. In Fallout 4 you could see Prydwen from the ground, walk the exterior catwalk, and explore the interior. With the UC Vigilance you see the outside when docking, and then “explore” a fake interior cell that does not represent the scale of the ship. M-Class Ships are always smaller on the inside, because you cannot walk through the entire ship. Bethrsda intentionally blocked corridors, cockpits, and paths that would have lead us to exploring it fully. If you took the interior cell of UC Vigilance and put it outside the ship model, you would be surprised how little we get to see within, and that takes away from the awe. I never see a full M-Class ship and get amazed by its scale, because I know it does not have an interior to match. Also, scale is different in space. If we saw UC Vigilance crash into Jemison like the Prydwen … first of all, what an epic ending to siding with the Crimson Fleet that would have been if they did that … but the story is too “safe.” You cannot destroy factions like Fallout 4, and I fnd it ironic because I hated destroying any of them. I wanted a Commonwealth where they united under my leadership, to combine the might of the Brotherhood with the knowledge of the Institute, but in Starfield you cannot wipe-out any of the major factions. Imagine being pro-UC and destroying the Freestar Collective, or cleaning up the streets of Neon by getting rid of all its gangs … or destroying Ryujin Tower like Arasaka HQ in Cyberpunk 2077, or back again to Fallout 4 when you nuke the Institute. Can you imagine watching Ryujin Tower litetally blow-up while watching it from the port of Neon? Then being denied access to all the companies they had absorbed? In Starfield, none of choices really matter, and then Unity starts us over with a clean slate to again do mothing. Even with the Terrormorph dilemma, we only get to see one scene of Ship Repair Techs getting told to exterminate heatleeches. I wanted to see a fully UC Army Unit of Xenowarfare Marines touch down on Londinion and “scorched earth” the city until it was safe for people to reclaim. But Londinion gets practically forgotten once the quest ends. I noticed all of the quests are like this. “Thanks for doing that mission Captain/Starborn.” and then you might hear an NPC say something new afterwards, like “I cannot believe Heatleeches were Terrormorphs” but you cannot actually hold a conversation with strangers about it. Imagine walking up to a named NPC in New Atlantis, and having a new dialogue option “So, what do you think of the Council’s decision on dealing with Terrormorphs?” Nope, nobody will talk with you about it, except Constellation hating your choices regardless of which ones you picked, or why. Ugh. Sorry, this turned into such a long rant. You can clearly tell how much I love Starfield, but Bethesda was so focused on having 1000 Planets, that they forgot why we play BGS RPGs. I enjoy the stories, and immersion into that universe. So much of Starfield reminds me that I am playing a game, despite loving it, instead of tricking me into thinking that I live in their universe. Thanks for letting me vent Crimson. Sorry for the length.

All of the Fallout games are forgettable at best, and barely tolerable for me historically. I have about 30-50 hrs in each of them vs 3000 or so in the Elder Scrolls games. I just don’t like anything about fallout 3 and beyond. I thought at the time and still do, that Bioshock was the vibe that Fallout wanted, but just couldn’t muster. I just don’t get why people like those games, but that’s just me. I spent more time waking up with the controller at my feet than anything about any of those games. Elder Scrolls however is the bee’s knees… though I won’t be going back. The future for me is future lore. I’ve got nothing left for fantasy lore.

I’m actually kind of fine with there not being grand epic set pieces, it makes the game have the same down to earth feel that Morrowind has. Feels way more grounded instead of the player accidentally wandering into this big set pieces like the BoS arriving in the commonwealth.

Starfield “cinematic” set pieces are slower paced. They are not the action scenes of high-octane games/movies. It’s more 2001: A Space Odyssey or Interstellar than Star Wars. Just think of the whole quest where you switch between realities. How it slowly got weirder, creepier and more insane as you went along. Even in its big moments, it encourages you to just slow down and take in the scenery.

Where Starfield excels is moments like when you find the tiny outpost where The Pilgrim’s hideout is. A tiny spot in the middle of nowhere. Not a soul in site. Just you, his abandoned place and some data logs. Or the whole NASA exploration quest. That one had me on the edge of my seat. So, I argue that Starfield does have its fair share of epic set pieces. But they are flavored differently than what we’re used to.

Mass effect like beginning with running away from Earth for terrormorphs then later on in the story you need to free new Atlantis and akila and make save outposts and cities for humanities survival your welcome

Starfield had a couple of cinematic moments. The Terrormorph quest in general has the giant Terrormorph boss on Londinian. Also the Terrormorph attack on New Atlantis. The first time you meet the Starborn in Neon’s orbit. A High Price to Pay is cinematic in the entirety, You’re fighting through the Lodge all the way to your ship. Shattered Space had the assault on the Scaled Citadel.

They don’t do the best job showcasing some of the unique POIs that are in there, like Safehouse Gamma and Sonny DiFalco’s. The ones with quests like Red Mile, Eleos Retreat, and Charybdis feel like good starts that ran out of steam at the end. I get the need for procedural generated POIs, but it’s weird to have a mission to go to a cryo lab on a planet where I’m getting burns.

Too many to list out here, but one thing that has always bugged me is that Starfield doesn’t have swappable weapon/armor mods like in Fallout 4. It makes no sense that we can’t take a suppressor off of one Grendel, and move it to another!
If they needed a restriction for gameplay balance, maybe make it so that the weapon mod tier level has to match the base weapon. For example, you can’t use a Calibrated suppressor on a Refined Grendel.

Seriously the uc should have been the main quest

A more active, present bad guy from the start and a better transition from orbit to surface would make me happier.
iFalcon

M class ships was in their eyes more epic in my opinion…. I mean there alright

It’s probably a lot harder to have set-piece moments without handcrafted environments because there’s no way to guide the player toward the mark to trigger the event.

The unique weapons are very underwhelming

Coffee time! I never noticed the lack of cinematic sequences. Well, damn now I feel stupid and cheated. Thanks buddy, great video, now I gotta go sit on a bar stool and cry into a beer. 😂

I’m suprised that the trashing of starfield has made people forget the beginning going down into the mine. The two chummy miners set piece before the machine opens the mine. The wakeup after character selection into that circle light. The exit out of the airlock into the atmosphere, the literal landing of a space ship with its crushing rocket sound. I want to say the switch from seeing Lin and Barrett talking to Barrett talking to us straight on and then switch to Vasco straight on. And then echoing outpost station alarm and pirate ship landing and being told to get into position. Even the enterance into the lodge for the first time with the elegant wooden door. To me there were so many cinematic moments in just the opening few missions. Cinema doesn’t always need to be horror for it to be a scene.

There needs to be more Terrormorph encounters in game

They definitely could’ve taken notes from other space games such as Infinite Warfare, the easiest they could’ve done was a ship being torn apart by a black hole.

Could we get larger asteroid fields if they weren’t Orbiting a planet?

I just want seamless grav jumps
Can we not replace that black loading screen with a short lightspeed animation?

I think Bethesda poured their resources into the procedural systems, so that no matter where you go there’s something to do, which given the size of the game waters down/obscures the more unique/epic moments. There are a lot of things I feel that are underutilized in the game, that could be used to set up some unique interesting/fun encounters (which is easier said than done). Right now I have more hours in the CK than I do in game as I am actively trying to implement them, with mixed results (the assets are there to build some very interesting/unique dungeons/poi while figuring out some of the creature stuff has been challenging). I feel like more unique one off POIs could really reinforce the worldbuilding and make the game feel more engaging.

The story itself is written very weak for Starfield. Just think about how each of those games were setup. In Fallout, your wife was killed, the world is ruined, your son was taken, there’s a Deathclaw in Concord and the settlers need you to rebuild. That’s like the first hour or two. These are storylines that make the player want to push forward and find out more. In Skyrim, you’re a prisoner about to beheaded, a dragon attacks Helgen, there’s a war brewing, you’re the Dragonborn. These things build the intrigue. Masterful writing because it sucks you in immediately. In Starfield you’re a nerd in a group of rock collectors. There’s not even a threat or a bad guy for half the game other than regular old space raiders.

Big stuff is kinda missing and even then, it takes me back when even bigger set pieces are just cut into a few cells that are separated with loading screens, like they Key-
New Atlantis also feel so small despite it being the biggest colony the UC has, not to mention that I always chuckle when Akila is the capital Freestar capital and it is like a couple shacks…

Cinematic scenes are basically the same as these fake loading screens, e.g. when you sit down in the pilot chair or get up from it. The dragon killing animation are more or less the same. You also have cinematics in Starfield, when you gain powers in the temples, when the terror morph shows up for the first time etc.
While I don’t care about them, many players seem to be annoyed or bored by them. This was the main criticism around Starfield: the loading screens – although many of them were not actually loading screens like the sit-down stand-up animations. Modern players don’t like them. They are more into speed-playing and rushing through the game as fast as possible. This attitude is kind of sad and will certainly not contribute to developers making better games. But it would be a bad advice to Bethesda telling them to include more of these animations, which is where most of the criticism came from.
I’m okay with the game as it is. And with the available mods I can make it even more to my likening.

For me, the best opening was Oblivion. The Emporer tells his story and the camera circling the capital and slowly zooming in until it speeds around the prison and through the window straight into the players cell.

I know it’ll probably never happen but dear God how I want a prequel dlc that focuses on the true horror and hell of the colony war or even better, isolated and condensed into a new large map similar to dazra, that is centered on the fall of londinion. Going full horror with the terrormorph swarms etc. Just imagine the POTENTIAL.

one question, those pieces was put in the other games at launch or are fullfilled after? Really i don’t remember, not a provocation.