Current Events > I just completed Starfield, AMA

(+) Yeah! (+)

Well, all the faction missions and main story. Actually kind of like the philosophy and metacommentary about life in the story, just a shame the whole game feels very bland and empty for the most part.

Also explored a little bit in New Game +, (major game spoilers): it is interesting how things have changed, though honestly I don't... remember the characters in the beginning like Helene Chambers or that kid and his situation with his parents dying lol. I actually only remember the kid himself because I used him and his family in the first playthrough to cheese upgrading my sneaking skill.

I did not get 100% achievements, so I might try to work on that in this playthrough. Or I might just load an old save where I have a gazillion credits and it'll just be easier to build everything I need for 100%.

My games completed this year:

Alan Wake 2 - 1 January
Saints Row (2022) - 19 February
Dragon Age: Origins - 24 February
Starfield - 7 April

Not a great pace lol, especially considering I had started Starfield at launch but I got burned out several times.

Just one bump, posted it kind of late

Good job

Sorry to hear that.

how much do you hate yourself

Crimsoness posted...

Good job

Thank you <3

I'm just realizing how underwhelming the choices and narration in the game are lol. I played 83 hours and there were only like half a dozen "universe altering" choices reflected and those were mostly the main faction stories. And even then the "consequences" were really underwhelming.

SicSlayer posted...

how much do you hate yourself

A lot, actually.

The main draw of NG+ is changing some of the late game story quests.

You might also want to download a mod to upgrade all the powers to X right away, just to mess with them for a bit before putting the game down. Otherwise you have to grind out catching 1,000 sparklies in zero-g in all the temples... -_-

Also, if you haven't tried it yet, mod the Mantis' ship into a C-Class vessel with 14 particle beams on it and attack The Key with it.

Nice, better than me. I put about 100 hours in and felt like I barely did anything before tapping out.

Some of the faction stories were cool, but I felt like I wasn't doing anything either. And I don't know if the modding community will improve it either because there isn't much enthusiasm for the base game.

DuneMan posted...

The main draw of NG+ is changing some of the late game story quests.

You might also want to download a mod to upgrade all the powers to X right away, just to mess with them for a bit before putting the game down. Otherwise you have to grind out catching 1,000 sparklies in zero-g in all the temples... -_-

Also, if you haven't tried it yet, mod the Mantis' ship into a C-Class vessel with 14 particle beams on it and attack The Key with it.

I am more curious about the first and third points... like can you completely destroy the Key?

I doubt I will have enough time to fully enjoy and explore with NG+, gonna do some searching and see if anyone journals their experiences with it.

I don't know what I should explore next. I am not too excited about the Dragon Age expansion packs, but that would be logical... I also have DA2 and DA: I.

Deathloop, Disco Elysium, Weird West, Wasteland 2 or Wasteland 3 (never played the series), Evil Genius 2 or Ghostwire: Tokyo are on the list as well. Though I imagine Disco Elysium is one of those games you need to play through several times to fully enjoy and I rarely have the time to even complete a game let alone play through it multiple times.

I'm bummed that the alternate NG+ starts are just random chance. If they were sequential and expanded on the plot each time that would have been sick.

Was tempted to get PC game pass to try it for $1 but it sounds so mediocre

Back_Stabbath posted...

I'm bummed that the alternate NG+ starts are just random chance. If they were sequential and expanded on the plot each time that would have been sick.

It also sounds like only the setting of the Lodge and the people within actually changes, everything else is the same... I wish they had opted to make the universe a little smaller and instead put more time into giving us something more like Sliders.

chaos_knight posted...

Was tempted to get PC game pass to try it for $1 but it sounds so mediocre

It does... well, shooting really well. Compared to any other Bethesda game and even some other first person shooter x RPGs, this is a really solid experience. It is almost as clean as Cyberpunk imo, though melee combat leaves a lot to be desired and you don't get cyberhacking/magic like in Cyberpunk so combat remains pretty one dimensional.

The rest of it is just ... lame. Like there's this MASSIVE fucking universe they built but if you stick to the main story content and faction quests you will only ever really visit maybe... seven or so different star systems and within those even just one or two planets or moons.

And there's a ton of shit they just barely even touch on. Maybe with some exploration there's more to be discovered, but for instance there's this House Va'Ruun, a group of humans who left the rest of humanity for distant star systems, and they are portrayed as these sort of cold-blooded "giant snake worshipers". You encounter them like once or twice in the main game but there's barely any lore to it and it's mostly a short two minute dialogue. You get more exposure when you do one of the faction questlines but even then it's limited to one of the central plot planets... Like I wanted to know more about them, maybe even join them, but I don't even know where to begin and I'm not about to visit a gazillion different systems just to figure it out.

Also so many damned copy-pasted assets. There is No Man's Sky-style exploration where you're scanning resources, plants and animal life on planets. There's not a big amount of variation between the shit though so have fun scanning the same "herding four-legged thing" five hundred times if you want to fully survey out a star system. Most of the "unknown" locations on each planet are just copy-pasted research outposts and mining outposts, too, without much unique loot to uncover (most unique thing you tend to find is a skill magazine, even those start to repeat after a while).

And so much fast travel. Everywhere. I am spoiled by Freelancer 2 and the X games but there's no reason at all to fly your ship between locations, it's all empty and takes forever. So you end up just fast traveling everywhere.

First thing I thought was: this was a mile wide and an inch deep

What'd you do that for?

ViewtifulJoe posted...

What'd you do that for?

I have way too many games and I have a bad habit of not completing the ones I start (usually) and I just wanted to finish this one and probably put it to rest. Starting a few years ago I started keeping a log of games I've completed each year, wish I had done that sooner.

Hexenherz posted...

I have way too many games and I have a bad habit of not completing the ones I start (usually) and I just wanted to finish this one and probably put it to rest. Starting a few years ago I started keeping a log of games I've completed each year, wish I had done that sooner.

What'd the 2023 list look like?

ViewtifulJoe posted...

What'd the 2023 list look like?

Somehow even worse... Though there were a lot of life circumstances precluding more.

Two Point Campus: Space Academy - 3 January
Max Payne 2 - 4 January
Two Point Campus - Ghost DLC - 25 March
Starship Troopers: Terran Command - 4 July
Two Point Campus: Medical School
Vampire Survivors - 21 October (100% achievements on this day).
World Keepers: Last Resort - 22 October
Ready or Not: - 28 December
(the) Gnorp Apologue - 30 December

This log goes back to 2021. 2020 was my "fun" year IIRC, that's when I played through all the Assassin's Creed games that had been released (minus the side scrolling ones) and Control. Not sure where that log is though, maybe on my desktop...

id have played it more if I didnt immediately get sidetracked into wandering around on every planet.

Hexenherz posted...

Deathloop, Disco Elysium, Weird West, Wasteland 2 or Wasteland 3 (never played the series), Evil Genius 2 or Ghostwire: Tokyo are on the list as well.

By happenstance I'm playing through Ghostwire: Tokyo at the moment. It's a bit unusual as a game, and leans very heavily into the Japanese settling. I think a lot of people faulted it for the combat not being overly intricate and for there being a 'collectathon' feeling to things; some describing it as feeling a bit like a supernatural Far Cry game. Personally I find the combat feels a bit better if you lean into the charged attacks and get upgrades like "quick purge knocked down enemies". Leveling up for the continuously channeled attacks opens new possibilities as well, and speeds up encounters through sheer force.

As an example of the Far Cry comparison, there is progress for you collecting 240,000+ souls from the city: which is probably the fastest way to level up. But even as you collect souls in groups of 100 or so(sometimes 500) that's still about 2,000 pickups on the map. The currency, called meika, will be needed to purchase items called "KK's Reports" which give you 20 skill points each(a few of them can be found in the world for free as well). Some upgrades also require collecting 'magatama', which generally come from side missions and purging yokai scattered on the map.

So my advice for that is to just participate long enough to get some key upgrades then consider whether you want to bother beyond that. Upgrades for things like scan distance, the first boost to glide duration, elemental weaving speed, core purge speed, and even spirit absorption speed will help. The biggest upgrade for convenience, and the game knows it too, is the one that lets you summon Tengu at any flat rooftop you aim at, allowing you quick access to the high ground. So that's the major upgrade to work toward after covering the basics. Beyond that you can skip collecting stuff if it doesn't interest you.