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Starfield has 'Mixed' reviews on Steam (Up: 'Recent' reviews are Mostly Negative)

Iced Arcade

Member
Was alright. I got to hour 72 and just stopped and trying to find the interest to finish.

That being said, I'm not a big rpg fan either.
 
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Not surprised; my first review would have been positive before eventually turning negative as well. I quit about 40 hours in. After having a few repeated dungeon areas and coming to the realization that the good story content was just drowned in and endless number of pointless fetch quests I was just done. First ES/Fallout style Bethesda game I didn't finish, as a fan of their games I was so hyped for this game for years and its sad to say I can't see myself going back.
 

Topher

Gold Member
Starfield is now rated Mostly Negative on Steam

Despite controversy, Starfield has released with an user score of 89% from 3,087 steam reviews. Many reviewers have nearly 50 hours in the game

What's your veredict?



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Review Thread

Space toddity (OT)

It isn't "mostly negative". That is just the recent reviews. All Reviews are still "mixed".
 

JackMcGunns

Member
Mods should correct that (first line in the OP as well). Starfield gets dunked on enough. No need to exaggerate.


Yep, people love to hate on Starfield. Came here from the newly locked thread that was just created dunking on Starfield again.

I've never seen Metacritic RECENT reviews = Mostly negative, it's simply "THE META SCORE". Will a mod edit the title? We'll see.
 
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JackMcGunns

Member
The title edits over the past few months is fucking hilarious


What's actually hilarious is that actual reviews are "Mixed" NOT mostly negative. Recent reviews may be so, but that does not reflect the actuality.


Imagine someone saying that the Metascore for X game is now below 8.0, but only calculating "Recent" reviews lol.

But will a mod edit the title to fix this misinformation?

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Mephisto40

Member
What's actually hilarious is that actual reviews are "Mixed" NOT mostly negative. Recent reviews may be so, but that does not reflect the actuality.


Imagine someone saying that the Metascore for X game is now below 8.0, but only calculating "Recent" reviews lol.

But will a mod edit the title to fix this misinformation?

e02e5ffb5f980cd8262cf7f0ae00a4a9_press-x-to-doubt-memes-memesuper-la-noire-doubt-meme_419-238.png
True, but what it does reflect, is that the Bethesda loyalists and people that were foaming at the mouth to play it buying it day 1, and the casual player who waited couple of months to play it are having vastly different experiences

The people playing it more recently won't have had their judgement swayed by brand loyalty
 
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Topher

Gold Member
True, but what it does reflect, is that the Bethesda loyalists and people that were foaming at the mouth to play it buying it day 1, and the casual player who waited couple of months to play it are having vastly different experiences

The people playing it more recently won't have had their judgement swayed by brand loyalty

Perhaps there is some "brand loyalty" going on for some, but that could be said for any game, particularly first party. Plenty of people, like myself, who enjoyed the game are not saying the game is flawless. Quite the opposite. Even through out the OT several of us were pointing out problems and annoyances. So I'm not putting much stock into positive reviews being entirely about "brand loyalty" any more than I put any stock into folks claiming the negative reviews were simply "review bombing". Too much focus on outliers, imo.
 
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JackMcGunns

Member
True, but what it does reflect, is that the Bethesda loyalists and people that were foaming at the mouth to play it buying it day 1, and the casual player who waited couple of months to play it are having vastly different experiences

The people playing it more recently won't have had their judgement swayed by brand loyalty


That would only be fair if we practice this for all titles, say a Nintendo or PlayStation exclusive, let's look up recent reviews and adjust those titles meta scores accordingly, but no, Starfield has been recently obsessively scrutinized over social media, and this isn't new, I recall TLOU 2 going through something similar over another unrelated backlash. The obsession is reaching ridiculous levels. Starfiled does have its faults and a lot needs to be fixed, but then again, based on what you just said, once those patches are released, are you ok with wiping the slate clean and creating a new score based on the new fixes? I bet not lol.
 
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JackMcGunns

Member
It's more shocking how it was ever positive to begin.

Like everyone has already said a million times, it was a messy extremely outdated game in almost every way at launch.

Nothing is changing that and nothing is saving it.


Or maybe it doesn't need saving? The folks that obsess over Bethesda games like myself are enjoying the hell out of this game, faults and all. I'm eagerly waiting for the next patch, but I've sunk more hours than I care to share lol, because I'm really having a good time creating massive outpost links and farming creatuers, building starfships from scratch, leveling my skills and unlocking new abilities. Are there many PITA bugs? yes, is anyone saying this game is perfect? No, but the obsession among people not playing the game or ever planning to is weird.
 

JackMcGunns

Member
Nah, there is no justification for "wiping the slate clean" no matter what Bethesda does going forward.


I agree, I'm just pointing out the double standard, he says recent reviews should only be the ones accounted for because they represent the "Post hype" sentiment, well what about the "Post fixes" sentiment? but that's not how things work is all I was trying to say.
 

dorkimoe

Member
Beat the game last week. It’s meh. 30fps and loading is insanely shit. Why the fuck is there so much loading? That one makes the game terrible to me.

Get quest inside building
Load to leave
Fast travel to ship: load
Load to GET IN THE SHIP
Load to get to a planet
Load to go into building on the planet
Turn quest in load to get back out
Load to get back in ship
Load to go turn quest back in
Repeat


Seriously what the actual fuck Meanwhile avatars world is huge and never needs a load to go inside anything
 
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GHG

Member
Beat the game last week. It’s meh. 30fps and loading is insanely shit. Why the fuck is there so much loading? That one makes the game terrible to me.

Get quest inside building
Load to leave
Fast travel to ship: load
Load to GET IN THE SHIP
Load to get to a planet


Seriously what the actual fuck Meanwhile avatars world is huge and never needs a load to go inside anything

It's a consequence of the archaic engine that they are using.

Would have been far better for everyone if they had taken the time to develop a new engine for this in the background while releasing a new TES or Fallout game with the current engine.
 

JackMcGunns

Member
Beat the game last week. It’s meh. 30fps and loading is insanely shit. Why the fuck is there so much loading? That one makes the game terrible to me.

Get quest inside building
Load to leave
Fast travel to ship: load
Load to GET IN THE SHIP
Load to get to a planet
Load to go into building on the planet
Turn quest in load to get back out
Load to get back in ship
Load to go turn quest back in
Repeat


Seriously what the actual fuck Meanwhile avatars world is huge and never needs a load to go inside anything


The loading is a killer, and even though I do fast travel almost everywhere now, there is a need to load, although inconsistant, sometimes loading could be just seconds, other times it seems like a lifetime. Might have to do with the design, for example I can drop indicite wafers next to an outpost beacon, come back a million years later and all my items are there, so the save accounts for everything and can swell to over 500MB to nearly a Gig for a save file, does that mean that almost a Gig of data has to load when you load your game? I'm no programmer, but if I had to guess, that's probably how it works, and probably why it takes so long, or I don't know 🤷‍♂️ But I agree, that's something that needs to be fixed or improved if it can be.
 
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dorkimoe

Member
It's a consequence of the archaic engine that they are using.

Would have been far better for everyone if they had taken the time to develop a new engine for this in the background while releasing a new TES or Fallout game with the current engine.
Please tell me this is the end of this engine?

The loading is a killer, and even though I do fast travel almost everywhere now, there is a need to load, although inconsistant, sometimes loading could be just seconds, other times it seems like a lifetime. Might have to do with the design, for example I can drop indicite wafers next to an outpost beacon, come back a million years later and all my items are there, so the save accounts for everything and can swell to over 500MB to nearly a Gig for a save file, does that mean that almost a Gig of data has to load when you load your game? I'm no programmer, but if I had to guess, that's probably how it works, and probably why it take so long 🤷‍♂️
I fast travel and its like whats even the point honestly. I think the fact you have to LOAD to get into the ship after fast traveling LOADING to the ship is so stupid. No Mans sky had bigger bases, more going on and NO load times from what I remember.
 
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GHG

Member
Might have to do with the design, for example I can drop indicite wafers next to an outpost beacon, come back a million years later and all my items are there, so the save accounts for everything and can swell to over 500MB to nearly a Gig for a save file, does that mean that almost a Gig of data has to load when you load your game? I'm no programmer, but if I had to guess, that's probably how it works, and probably why it take so long 🤷‍♂️

Persistent items/loot isn't something unique to this game (or Bethesda rpgs) anymore though. It's 2024, there are other RPG's/survival games where you can dump a load of items in a random place and they will still be there until you decide to move them again.

Please tell me this is the end of this engine?

Hosnetly, no idea.
 
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JackMcGunns

Member
Persistent items/loot isn't something unique to this game (or Bethesda rpgs) anymore though. It's 2024, there are other RPG's/survival games where you can dump a load of items in a random place and they will still be there until you decide to move them again.


I'm no programmer, just trying to make sense out of it, why the hell does it take so long to load sometimes, while other times not? I would like to hear an answer from them and whether it's something that can be fixed or improved.
 

Reizo Ryuu

Gold Member
I'm no programmer, just trying to make sense out of it, why the hell does it take so long to load sometimes, while other times not? I would like to hear an answer from them and whether it's something that can be fixed or improved.
loading is pretty brief for me on pc, it barely really registers.
Seeing how the xsx has fast storage and a large pool of ram, it doesn't seem like those two things would make up the big difference for pc, especially since it doesn't use directstorage, so that just leaves the CPU.
So if it then needs to load a fuckton of small files, and it perhaps uses its own decompression engine, the CPU could be the bottleneck, also bethesda games do more than just load when you see a loading screen, they are also running simulations to make sure everything is synced properly, which again could be a CPU bottleneck.
The engine will even keep "busted" logic in place that doesn't flush out on reloading your save, you have to completely quit your play session and then load the save for it to flush the logic, checking all the saved logic again could also be another CPU bottleneck.
 

laynelane

Member
Please tell me this is the end of this engine?

Bethesda has already confirmed they'll be using the same engine for Elder Scrolls 6. There's no doubt the engine is an issue, but along with that there may also be a programming issue. I don't use mods, but have noticed that modders can make Bethesda games more stable, run better, fix bugs, etc. If they can do it, Bethesda should be able to but they just don't.
 

Mephisto40

Member
Starfiled does have its faults and a lot needs to be fixed, but then again, based on what you just said, once those patches are released, are you ok with wiping the slate clean and creating a new score based on the new fixes? I bet not lol.
I don't think any amount of patches are going to fix the fundamental issues with the gameplay loop, so probably not
 

Xion_Stellar

People should stop referencing data that makes me feel uncomfortable because games get ported to platforms I don't like
I don't think any amount of patches are going to fix the fundamental issues with the gameplay loop, so probably not
No amount of patches or mods for that matter it seems because they made some poor design decisions when they laid the foundational ground work for this game and now 8 years later it's coming back to bite them.

I have been lurking around various modding communities and at least in terms of scope modders are stuck with the t limits the engine has and you will never see "world size mods" that people initially hoped to build.

If you're familiar with the term float points and if you know about what Minecraft Farlands used to be then it's the same issue here.

Basically when you land on a planet the ship becomes the "center of your world" and the engine's logic is keeping track of everything that happens within that world but unfortunately due to how the game's logic handles this tracking the further away you move from the "center of the world" the worse job the game does at tracking things so while the game can handle loading a few far off adjacent cells from the "center of your world" it will eventually collapse under the stress and crash the game.

Minecraft was able to overcome this hurdle by completely redesigning their engine and how the game works in the background and it's something that modders don't think Bethesda will be willing to do.
 

Ar¢tos

Member
That would only be fair if we practice this for all titles, say a Nintendo or PlayStation exclusive, let's look up recent reviews and adjust those titles meta scores accordingly, but no, Starfield has been recently obsessively scrutinized over social media, and this isn't new, I recall TLOU 2 going through something similar over another unrelated backlash. The obsession is reaching ridiculous levels. Starfiled does have its faults and a lot needs to be fixed, but then again, based on what you just said, once those patches are released, are you ok with wiping the slate clean and creating a new score based on the new fixes? I bet not lol.
If you start allowing review scores to be updated after a few patches, that will only give incentive for devs to release games in an even more unfinished state.

Review scores should be even tougher now that we are in an always era, devs should be punished for releasing half baked games.
 

Loope

Member
True, but what it does reflect, is that the Bethesda loyalists and people that were foaming at the mouth to play it buying it day 1, and the casual player who waited couple of months to play it are having vastly different experiences

The people playing it more recently won't have had their judgement swayed by brand loyalty
Or the negative reviews can be swayed by the negativity that settled in after the game was released, which ocurrs plenty with Bethesda titles. My approach to Bethesda games is don't give a shit about anyone else opinion and play for myself.

For example, i got tired of Skyrim combat system and the way you can cheese to the top with several upgrades, but fuck me if i didn't play 300 hous or so before i grew tired of it.
 
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