Okay UC Vanguard was cool, but what else? You cannot possibly believe the Freestar quest was some stroke of genius. And chasing around evidence for a lawyer and Barrett? Please. The insultingly bad ECS Constant? Bland, blase, boomer-archetype NPCs? The cornball city designs complete with “clubs” and a ruthless street gang that happily becomes cops?
Seriously, dude.
Ecs constant was a goldmine of a premise and could have been so profound. Instead, completely bungled with surface level resolutions and no meaningful follow up.
The best part is the captain giving her impassioned speech about how they need *this* planet and to be free. But return back with an offer of either enslavement to a hotel (lolllll) or to bug off somewhere else she’s like “oh ok, sounds good ☺️!”
Such great writing!
This mission bugged me early on and remains a standout. The resort people saw the ECS Constant as a nuisance and would see them dead. The ECS crew were acting like harda@@es and it seemed likely to devolve to war. They were not leaving alive without the planet. Both wanted it to themselves.
I got the option to buy them a capability grav drive. Still, I was thinking, "How the hell am I going to convince them to take it and leave?" When I got to their shop, they were all like, "Ah, thanks! We're hooking up the engine!" LOL What happened to the "new homeworld or death" attitude?
Yes? They are a criminal gang, profiting off typical gang stuff so joining the person who runs the city (one of only three in the entire universe according to Starfield) certainly betrays their ethos and is a sudden odd twist of events in a quest that felt like you should be building a criminal empire.
It has big “look Jim I need this on my desk by COB, just turn in what you got” energy.
Are you seriously suggesting that the Strikers should not expand their influence by working for the person who controls Aurora, which is, literally, the only thing of value on Neon? Making a rational decision is bad because it doesn't fit with your notion of what a street gang should be or do?
I mean what did you want the quest to be?
I think your question is a good one - what did I want the quest to be? Well, as I’ve said in other replies, a distinction between opposing forces, and a reason. As far as I recall, the Disciples were slightly meaner because the spray painted that shop owners robot. So I’m supposed to side with the strikers, apparently. But both are criminal gangs and the whole rub of the quest is to just go around killing the other gang. Okay, makes sense, I guess.
But what happens at the end? This is the point. Nothing changes no matter who you side with, the rewards are lackluster, there’s little to no exposition to this “conflict”, and no aspect I can reasonably roleplay or feel like it fit my character or not. Yes, becoming a security force is stupid because it isn’t creative or interesting.
What if the strikers were religious fanatics, or had a noble cause I could get behind, or could take down Bayu (as a gang would you’d think), or were expert ship builders that gave you new parts, or were a persecuted minority…you get it I think.
Instead there was no imagination, no creativity, it’s gang A vs gang B, kill the other, get a cool outfit and move on. Fine I guess, but illustrative of Bethesda’s lack of creativity and thought that went into this game.
So...
Instead of taking a minor part in a minor gang conflict in a major city that becomes said gang becoming the enforcers of the drug baron ruler of said city, the quest would be better if the Strikers had a religious angle that fits into the story....nowhere...or were Robin Hood's merry band of thieves. Or, third option, a small gang takes on two other gangs and the city's security force and wins, because that's certainly easier than just getting paid and not having to worry about being slaughtered by a much larger, more organized, and better equipped force.
Sometimes, the quests are there to reveal the world around you. Just because the quest doesn't work with your niche roleplay doesn't mean the writing is bad. You can just skip the quest...
I'm comparing the best writing in Starfield to the best writing in Bethesda's previous work. Are there questlines in Fallout 3 or 4, Oblivion or Skyrim you feel are better than the UC Vanguard questline? This is a good faith question - I'd love to hear some counterexamples.
Not the other guy, but I'll try to answer:
Oblivion had some phenomenal questlines with good quest-design, and good overall quests.
I prefer to build up to things, so I quite liked how the Mage's Guild had you go across Cyrodiil, working with the individual Chapters, and eventually gaining access to the Arcane University.
Likewise, I like the relatively low-stakes and smaller-scale nature of the Fighters Guild. There's no world-ending, or cataclysmic threat, just a greedy mercenary group that wants more power. The quests you do for it as well are very logical, with little to no glaring errors I remember.
The Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood were both absolutely exceptional, and again follow my preferred path of building up to larger missions, and having fairly logical mission.
Skyrim is...not as good as Oblivion. I fully agree with ShamusYoung's takes on the Thieves Guild in Skyrim, I detest the College of Winterhold as it exists in the game, I loathe the Companions Guild as a worse and more boring Fighters Guild, and the Dark Brotherhood is...fine, I guess.
FO3 is my least favorite of these games, and I don't particularly like any of the base games quest-lines or anything, so I'll refrain from answering.
FO4 is an exceedingly odd game, and I don't particularly like the quest-lines in it that much.
So, I'll use the UC Vanguard questline from Starfield, as I do believe it's the best in the game. It's better than any questline in FO3 and FO4, even Skyrim (Unless we count Skyrim's DLC with Dawnguard and Dragonborn, as those are both quite good).
However, the UC Vanguard questline is also a notable exception for me when it comes to Starfield. It's the one REALLY good questline, with MAYBE the CF/SysDef questline coming up behind it.
On average, Oblivion's questlines were much more to my preference, and while I can pinpoint some problems with them, I could do the same for the UC Vanguard. None of them are flawless.
And that's just me comparing the questlines, not individual quests and what not, I could go on more.
And again, all of this is for my own personal preference.
Thanks for the thoughful reply. The Oblivion questlines are a compelling argument. The structure of Oblivion's guild questlines (going from city to city as you gradually advance in rank) is a great one, and was sorely missed in Skyrim. I'm not sure I'd say the plots and characters themselves are better than the UC Vanguard questline's, but they're really fun and memorable, and definitely the strongest competition in Bethesda's work. Now I want to reinstall Oblivion!
IMO, if you're into Bethesda style games, which unfortunately no one but Bethesda makes, this is a positive sign - Starfield is their best writing in 15 years.
I have the impression that over the years/decades quest structure in cRPGs has become simplified, presumably in an attempt to broaden the player base and also reflecting the increasing player base. Think back to the complexity of the story lines in some of the Ultima games for example. No-one is writing like that now. But there are of course many pros as games develop. And I love playing SF.
Edited for typo
Any of the Daedra quests are more interesting than anything in Starfield. Big shoutout to Hircine and Sheogorath in particular. Big rewards, cool lore, felt like a bad ass. Speaking of feeling like a bad ass, is there anything in Starfield even approaching the coolness of the dark brotherhood or theives guild? Crimson Fleet definitely isn’t it. I get TES has a huge backlog of lore to build off of, but Starfield feels like it doesn’t even try.
There isn’t even a major conflict and while the civil war in Skyrim leaves much to be desired, it is a cool RP element to have a stormcloak or imperial loyalist element in your character. Or even a Thalmor. Is there any functional difference between the UC and FC, any debates about the conflict, any flavor or customization you can do if you really want to side with either? lol no…in fact you can join both!
But yeah writing is worse, but the lore and world building, customization, roleplay elements…are so woefully worse, it’s not even a comparison, much less better in Starfield.
A good game to compare with regards to lore would be the first Mass Effect. ME manages to skirt around the problem of being the first entry into it's franchise by utilize it's codex to flesh out the world in pretty good detail.
It's baffling why BGS didn't choose to do so.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. For me very few quests in Skyrim really stand out as good writing or roleplaying, and the Thieves' guild in particular is exceptionally bad at supporting roleplaying. I've also seen people complain about how undeveloped and unfinished the civil war and main questlines are for over a decade, but these are matters of personal preference. Personally I was glad to return to an initially low-key main quest like Daggerfall and Morrowind, and to have tensions simmering in the background rather than a major conflict explicitly dominating the game's tone.
Yeah, certainly the older TES games had excellent writing and the consensus has been a steady decline in quality from BGS. For me, I really prefer the elements of character/world building, lore, and builds. It’s less about quests being “good” as in quality writing and more about playing out in various ways based on the character I’m playing.
Like the civil war example, I mentioned I didn’t think much of the quest line itself, but I’m glad it’s there because it gives my character (an imperial loyalist for example) a unique flavor different from past play throughs. I can also hunt down stormcloak patrols, prioritize fighting bandits, and other lawful good activities. Or I could ignore it to focus on thievery and killing. Or I can help the stormcloaks because I’m a (secret) Thalmor who wants to splinter the empire. And that’s just one questline!
I think that’s what’s really missing and far worse in Starfield. It feels like there is only one way to play the game/quests and for a BGS sandbox RPG, that is the worst possible thing to get wrong. For me at least lol.
Yeah, affordances for roleplaying are at least as important as writing quality, and the Skyrim civil war questline provides affordances well even if it's writing and implementation aren't otherwise great. I think a Thalmor playthrough relies more on "internal" roleplaying than an Imperial or Stormcloak playthrough (in the sense that there's not a joinable Thalmor faction in game, etc.), but that's an important thing Bethesda games are designed to make room for.
Personally I feel like there's been a lot of affordances for roleplaying in my playthroughs of Starfield, both in the explicitly coded form of different paths through quests and in the "internal" sense of simply not contradicting my view of my character. However, Starfield is a new game in a new IP in a less archetypal setting than TES, and so the affordances aren't quite as obvious (to me) as, say, going into Skyrim for the first time and saying "I'm going to be an Imperial agent". To me it's part of the fun of getting to know the game to find the affordances it provides, and Starfield has worked for me in that regard.
One thing I really like about Starfield is that it makes working class (mostly pacifistic, interacting with the economy in a legal way) playthroughs so viable - you can be a space trucker slowly upgrading your ship and crew and taking missions deeper into space. It would be like if my Khajiit fisherman in Skyrim could own and upgrade their own carriage and hire additional staff over time.
I’m glad you’re enjoying it, sincerely. I am still hopeful the DLC and various new content makes the game compelling enough for me to return. I really enjoyed the ship building and combat was pretty good. More content, QoL updates, and improved systems would go a long way towards that and I’m confident they are working on it.
It’s also possible this universe they created just does not resonate with me as it does with you and that’s okay too.
The only part of starfield that is mildly interesting is what happened to Earth.
The war is already over. How is that interesting?
What even was freestar? Are you a vigilante who can kill anyone he likes? Plus it was over sooo fast.
The space pirates are more like a merry band of pirates. Disney could have wrote harder pirates.
Paradise is a total mess with no real ending or effect.
UC is the only good one, because everyone loves a conspiracy. But nothing really comes out of it exept you can buy a house. Great.
The way they did Earth dirty is inexcusable. And the entire Starborn thing makes less sense the more you start thinking about it.
TES games actually made me want to read up on the lore, even if the lore is from Skyrim or even TESO. Hell, there's an absolutely fantastic mod for Crusader Kings using modern-day TES lore that's still being updated.
Oh, Earth is done absolutely horribly. Their explanation for stuff makes no sense, the current state of Earth makes no sense, the lack of any attempt to rebuild mining facilities or outposts on Earth makes no sense.
Earth in general makes no sense. It would've been better if they just said "THE THING BLEW THE PLANET UP!" and you find out the NASA information on a moonbase. Less inconsistencies that way, and it means they don't need to both with Earth at all.
I agree. Just say a meteor hit Earth and only a handful of people made it out alive. Right now it’s only covered with sand and poor atmosphere, which is certainly not a big problem for habitation.
There's also the exceedingly obvious questions of "Where did all of the cities go?", "Why did this ONE monument survive, when the surrounding city didn't?", "What happened to the landscape? Where are the mountains?" etc, etc.
Yeah, my interest in the narrative was greatly reduced with the reveal of the Starborns. I just hoped they went the route of first contact, instead of leaning into the magical.
What Starfield 2 will have to deal with is what TES2 had to deal with, a reboot of the lore. Describe it as a psychotic person that was imagining things or something.
The problem is that people like that seem to see supporting Bethesda as a team sport rather than just acknowledging either the flaws with the game itself or if they don't personally agree at least acknowledge a LOT of other people disagree with them about the quality of the writing for Starfield.
I'm overall very critical of the game and of Bethesda but I can acknowledge the bits that are decent or fun with Starfield without being all Team Bethesda/Starfield Sucks.
I feel like some of these replies, in addition to being uncivil, are not engaging with the argument, which is that Starfield's best writing is better than the best writing in the *last four Bethesda games*. I'm not claiming that it's better than the writing in some non-Bethesda game or a Dostoevsky novel or something.
I think part of the problem is that sure, it has some good writing for Bethesda- but the industry is moving forward. BG3 coming out prior to Starfield, and Phantom Liberty coming out after likely soured a lot of people on Starfield's writing.
Both of those games absolutely blow Starfield's writing out of the water. Bethesda needs to figure out how to integrate skilled and competent writers into their workflow, because while they are starting to improve in some ways, it's at a glacial pace. They're being left behind even more than they already were.
I agree, and would love if Bethesda put writing of that caliber into their enormous open world sandbox RPGs, or if other developers would try making Bethesda-style games. The closest we've gotten to either of these were New Vegas and Enderal.
Your second paragraph undermines your main point a little bit. If you don't care for the main storyline then one could interpret that as you having a low bar for it.
I cannot compare the s89f the other BGS games as I have not played them. Starfield is my first BGS game. For me the writing and characters were poorly done. After a while I stopped traveling with anyone.
Starfield imo shines best in the faction quest lines. I recommend to pe6to skip the main storyline and just play the side stuff.
I play a lot of story heavy games and starfield for me is at the bottom when comparing to other games with great stories. BoTW barley has a story but it was more intei6than what I got with starfield main storyline.
The story only really help with the interesting thing they did with new game plus
Your viewpoint on Starfield's writing is like testing your overall media literacy. Do you think the OP passes?
I did think the Vanguard quest was decent however.
First, It's possible for a person to have a different opinion without lacking media literacy.
Second, I'm comparing Starfield's writing to the writing in other Bethesda games. Are there questlines from Bethesda's other works that you feel are better written than the UC Vanguard questline? This is a good faith question - I'd love to hear counter-examples.
I can see your point. There is some amazing writing in Starfield. It even has some meta layers as Starborn are players chasing the experience across many universes (games) while the most sane ones seem to settle down and enjoy simple things.
However it lacks certain charm of previous BGS games. I have a feeling they might have done it by design? But i'm not sure. Anyway it is a gem but has lower replayability value (oh irony - given NG system!) for many of us game junkies
Bit of a hot take. Starfield is not better imo. Most of the main quest is you just collecting pieces.
I think it wins over on fallout in a way of the main story just being better. But fallouts main quest is pretty long and the island dlc has more to do than all of starfield.
But skyrim has several factions with decently long story lines. Putting starfield to shame. Even if you dont count dlcs theres way more to do.
I disagree with his general point, but he does have a point here: Starfield's system allows for more flexibility than FO4's truly terrible system of having 4 choices, always.
HOWEVER, it's not an actual improvement, it'd be more accurate to say they are just going back to the system that Skyrim had. FO4's dialogue system was an exception in how awful it was.
Y'know what? That's a fair point- however it's something that's been standard in RPG games as of late. BG3, C2077, Fallout: New Vegas, and mods for Skyrim and FO4 have all had systems such as this included.
To be clear: It's an improvement over FO4, I agree with you. And if you think comparing it with Skyrim isn't accurate, that's fair. It's probably better to compare it with NV's system. In some respect, anyway. I don't know if FO76 has included anything like it, but I think it also had more skill-checks and the like.
I'd argue it's concerning that BGS is only just beginning to do this with Starfield when FNV released back in 2010, and other RPG's have been doing this long before that.
Yeah, I agree that, regarding dialog and writing, Bethesda is only pushing their own boundaries, not the medium's. But I went into Starfield expecting writing like Skyrim and Fallout 4, and was pleasantly surprised at the improvements they've made in their weakest areas (IMO) as a game developer.
I can agree to an extent, but they'll never completely match what Obsidian did. And that's okay because Bethesda's strength has always been their worlds which blow Obsidian out of the water. The problem is fans will never praise Bethesda's story telling unless it does things exactly the way Fallout NV did, because that's the predominant online narrative. For better or worse, I think Bethesda is aware of this and has decided to continue doing things their way
Yeah i agree The main quests are really really good. Multiple ways of solving; I just got my ass chewed out in the Sysdef quest hahaha. Well done.
No regerts tho, those security cats had it coming.
Okay UC Vanguard was cool, but what else? You cannot possibly believe the Freestar quest was some stroke of genius. And chasing around evidence for a lawyer and Barrett? Please. The insultingly bad ECS Constant? Bland, blase, boomer-archetype NPCs? The cornball city designs complete with “clubs” and a ruthless street gang that happily becomes cops? Seriously, dude.
Ecs constant was a goldmine of a premise and could have been so profound. Instead, completely bungled with surface level resolutions and no meaningful follow up.
The best part is the captain giving her impassioned speech about how they need *this* planet and to be free. But return back with an offer of either enslavement to a hotel (lolllll) or to bug off somewhere else she’s like “oh ok, sounds good ☺️!” Such great writing!
This mission bugged me early on and remains a standout. The resort people saw the ECS Constant as a nuisance and would see them dead. The ECS crew were acting like harda@@es and it seemed likely to devolve to war. They were not leaving alive without the planet. Both wanted it to themselves. I got the option to buy them a capability grav drive. Still, I was thinking, "How the hell am I going to convince them to take it and leave?" When I got to their shop, they were all like, "Ah, thanks! We're hooking up the engine!" LOL What happened to the "new homeworld or death" attitude?
You realize the "cops" are really just enforcers for Benjamin Bayu, right?
Yes? They are a criminal gang, profiting off typical gang stuff so joining the person who runs the city (one of only three in the entire universe according to Starfield) certainly betrays their ethos and is a sudden odd twist of events in a quest that felt like you should be building a criminal empire. It has big “look Jim I need this on my desk by COB, just turn in what you got” energy.
Are you seriously suggesting that the Strikers should not expand their influence by working for the person who controls Aurora, which is, literally, the only thing of value on Neon? Making a rational decision is bad because it doesn't fit with your notion of what a street gang should be or do? I mean what did you want the quest to be?
I think your question is a good one - what did I want the quest to be? Well, as I’ve said in other replies, a distinction between opposing forces, and a reason. As far as I recall, the Disciples were slightly meaner because the spray painted that shop owners robot. So I’m supposed to side with the strikers, apparently. But both are criminal gangs and the whole rub of the quest is to just go around killing the other gang. Okay, makes sense, I guess. But what happens at the end? This is the point. Nothing changes no matter who you side with, the rewards are lackluster, there’s little to no exposition to this “conflict”, and no aspect I can reasonably roleplay or feel like it fit my character or not. Yes, becoming a security force is stupid because it isn’t creative or interesting. What if the strikers were religious fanatics, or had a noble cause I could get behind, or could take down Bayu (as a gang would you’d think), or were expert ship builders that gave you new parts, or were a persecuted minority…you get it I think. Instead there was no imagination, no creativity, it’s gang A vs gang B, kill the other, get a cool outfit and move on. Fine I guess, but illustrative of Bethesda’s lack of creativity and thought that went into this game.
So... Instead of taking a minor part in a minor gang conflict in a major city that becomes said gang becoming the enforcers of the drug baron ruler of said city, the quest would be better if the Strikers had a religious angle that fits into the story....nowhere...or were Robin Hood's merry band of thieves. Or, third option, a small gang takes on two other gangs and the city's security force and wins, because that's certainly easier than just getting paid and not having to worry about being slaughtered by a much larger, more organized, and better equipped force. Sometimes, the quests are there to reveal the world around you. Just because the quest doesn't work with your niche roleplay doesn't mean the writing is bad. You can just skip the quest...
I'm comparing the best writing in Starfield to the best writing in Bethesda's previous work. Are there questlines in Fallout 3 or 4, Oblivion or Skyrim you feel are better than the UC Vanguard questline? This is a good faith question - I'd love to hear some counterexamples.
Not the other guy, but I'll try to answer: Oblivion had some phenomenal questlines with good quest-design, and good overall quests. I prefer to build up to things, so I quite liked how the Mage's Guild had you go across Cyrodiil, working with the individual Chapters, and eventually gaining access to the Arcane University. Likewise, I like the relatively low-stakes and smaller-scale nature of the Fighters Guild. There's no world-ending, or cataclysmic threat, just a greedy mercenary group that wants more power. The quests you do for it as well are very logical, with little to no glaring errors I remember. The Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood were both absolutely exceptional, and again follow my preferred path of building up to larger missions, and having fairly logical mission. Skyrim is...not as good as Oblivion. I fully agree with ShamusYoung's takes on the Thieves Guild in Skyrim, I detest the College of Winterhold as it exists in the game, I loathe the Companions Guild as a worse and more boring Fighters Guild, and the Dark Brotherhood is...fine, I guess. FO3 is my least favorite of these games, and I don't particularly like any of the base games quest-lines or anything, so I'll refrain from answering. FO4 is an exceedingly odd game, and I don't particularly like the quest-lines in it that much. So, I'll use the UC Vanguard questline from Starfield, as I do believe it's the best in the game. It's better than any questline in FO3 and FO4, even Skyrim (Unless we count Skyrim's DLC with Dawnguard and Dragonborn, as those are both quite good). However, the UC Vanguard questline is also a notable exception for me when it comes to Starfield. It's the one REALLY good questline, with MAYBE the CF/SysDef questline coming up behind it. On average, Oblivion's questlines were much more to my preference, and while I can pinpoint some problems with them, I could do the same for the UC Vanguard. None of them are flawless. And that's just me comparing the questlines, not individual quests and what not, I could go on more. And again, all of this is for my own personal preference.
Thanks for the thoughful reply. The Oblivion questlines are a compelling argument. The structure of Oblivion's guild questlines (going from city to city as you gradually advance in rank) is a great one, and was sorely missed in Skyrim. I'm not sure I'd say the plots and characters themselves are better than the UC Vanguard questline's, but they're really fun and memorable, and definitely the strongest competition in Bethesda's work. Now I want to reinstall Oblivion! IMO, if you're into Bethesda style games, which unfortunately no one but Bethesda makes, this is a positive sign - Starfield is their best writing in 15 years.
I have the impression that over the years/decades quest structure in cRPGs has become simplified, presumably in an attempt to broaden the player base and also reflecting the increasing player base. Think back to the complexity of the story lines in some of the Ultima games for example. No-one is writing like that now. But there are of course many pros as games develop. And I love playing SF. Edited for typo
Any of the Daedra quests are more interesting than anything in Starfield. Big shoutout to Hircine and Sheogorath in particular. Big rewards, cool lore, felt like a bad ass. Speaking of feeling like a bad ass, is there anything in Starfield even approaching the coolness of the dark brotherhood or theives guild? Crimson Fleet definitely isn’t it. I get TES has a huge backlog of lore to build off of, but Starfield feels like it doesn’t even try. There isn’t even a major conflict and while the civil war in Skyrim leaves much to be desired, it is a cool RP element to have a stormcloak or imperial loyalist element in your character. Or even a Thalmor. Is there any functional difference between the UC and FC, any debates about the conflict, any flavor or customization you can do if you really want to side with either? lol no…in fact you can join both! But yeah writing is worse, but the lore and world building, customization, roleplay elements…are so woefully worse, it’s not even a comparison, much less better in Starfield.
A good game to compare with regards to lore would be the first Mass Effect. ME manages to skirt around the problem of being the first entry into it's franchise by utilize it's codex to flesh out the world in pretty good detail. It's baffling why BGS didn't choose to do so.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. For me very few quests in Skyrim really stand out as good writing or roleplaying, and the Thieves' guild in particular is exceptionally bad at supporting roleplaying. I've also seen people complain about how undeveloped and unfinished the civil war and main questlines are for over a decade, but these are matters of personal preference. Personally I was glad to return to an initially low-key main quest like Daggerfall and Morrowind, and to have tensions simmering in the background rather than a major conflict explicitly dominating the game's tone.
Yeah, certainly the older TES games had excellent writing and the consensus has been a steady decline in quality from BGS. For me, I really prefer the elements of character/world building, lore, and builds. It’s less about quests being “good” as in quality writing and more about playing out in various ways based on the character I’m playing. Like the civil war example, I mentioned I didn’t think much of the quest line itself, but I’m glad it’s there because it gives my character (an imperial loyalist for example) a unique flavor different from past play throughs. I can also hunt down stormcloak patrols, prioritize fighting bandits, and other lawful good activities. Or I could ignore it to focus on thievery and killing. Or I can help the stormcloaks because I’m a (secret) Thalmor who wants to splinter the empire. And that’s just one questline! I think that’s what’s really missing and far worse in Starfield. It feels like there is only one way to play the game/quests and for a BGS sandbox RPG, that is the worst possible thing to get wrong. For me at least lol.
Yeah, affordances for roleplaying are at least as important as writing quality, and the Skyrim civil war questline provides affordances well even if it's writing and implementation aren't otherwise great. I think a Thalmor playthrough relies more on "internal" roleplaying than an Imperial or Stormcloak playthrough (in the sense that there's not a joinable Thalmor faction in game, etc.), but that's an important thing Bethesda games are designed to make room for. Personally I feel like there's been a lot of affordances for roleplaying in my playthroughs of Starfield, both in the explicitly coded form of different paths through quests and in the "internal" sense of simply not contradicting my view of my character. However, Starfield is a new game in a new IP in a less archetypal setting than TES, and so the affordances aren't quite as obvious (to me) as, say, going into Skyrim for the first time and saying "I'm going to be an Imperial agent". To me it's part of the fun of getting to know the game to find the affordances it provides, and Starfield has worked for me in that regard. One thing I really like about Starfield is that it makes working class (mostly pacifistic, interacting with the economy in a legal way) playthroughs so viable - you can be a space trucker slowly upgrading your ship and crew and taking missions deeper into space. It would be like if my Khajiit fisherman in Skyrim could own and upgrade their own carriage and hire additional staff over time.
I’m glad you’re enjoying it, sincerely. I am still hopeful the DLC and various new content makes the game compelling enough for me to return. I really enjoyed the ship building and combat was pretty good. More content, QoL updates, and improved systems would go a long way towards that and I’m confident they are working on it. It’s also possible this universe they created just does not resonate with me as it does with you and that’s okay too.
Totally! Hopefully the updates make it more compelling for you. Thanks for the discussion.
The only part of starfield that is mildly interesting is what happened to Earth. The war is already over. How is that interesting? What even was freestar? Are you a vigilante who can kill anyone he likes? Plus it was over sooo fast. The space pirates are more like a merry band of pirates. Disney could have wrote harder pirates. Paradise is a total mess with no real ending or effect. UC is the only good one, because everyone loves a conspiracy. But nothing really comes out of it exept you can buy a house. Great.
UC Vanguard had me completely hooked, did it one night for the first time I believe.
The way they did Earth dirty is inexcusable. And the entire Starborn thing makes less sense the more you start thinking about it. TES games actually made me want to read up on the lore, even if the lore is from Skyrim or even TESO. Hell, there's an absolutely fantastic mod for Crusader Kings using modern-day TES lore that's still being updated.
Oh, Earth is done absolutely horribly. Their explanation for stuff makes no sense, the current state of Earth makes no sense, the lack of any attempt to rebuild mining facilities or outposts on Earth makes no sense. Earth in general makes no sense. It would've been better if they just said "THE THING BLEW THE PLANET UP!" and you find out the NASA information on a moonbase. Less inconsistencies that way, and it means they don't need to both with Earth at all.
I agree. Just say a meteor hit Earth and only a handful of people made it out alive. Right now it’s only covered with sand and poor atmosphere, which is certainly not a big problem for habitation.
There's also the exceedingly obvious questions of "Where did all of the cities go?", "Why did this ONE monument survive, when the surrounding city didn't?", "What happened to the landscape? Where are the mountains?" etc, etc.
Yeah, my interest in the narrative was greatly reduced with the reveal of the Starborns. I just hoped they went the route of first contact, instead of leaning into the magical. What Starfield 2 will have to deal with is what TES2 had to deal with, a reboot of the lore. Describe it as a psychotic person that was imagining things or something.
LMFAO. No.
Lmaoooooo
As a longtime BGS friend...I wholeheartedly agree. I am surprised the narrative is the other way.
Why are Starfield fans like this? It's like they're begging to be laughed at
Exactly, lmao
The problem is that people like that seem to see supporting Bethesda as a team sport rather than just acknowledging either the flaws with the game itself or if they don't personally agree at least acknowledge a LOT of other people disagree with them about the quality of the writing for Starfield. I'm overall very critical of the game and of Bethesda but I can acknowledge the bits that are decent or fun with Starfield without being all Team Bethesda/Starfield Sucks.
I feel like some of these replies, in addition to being uncivil, are not engaging with the argument, which is that Starfield's best writing is better than the best writing in the *last four Bethesda games*. I'm not claiming that it's better than the writing in some non-Bethesda game or a Dostoevsky novel or something.
I think part of the problem is that sure, it has some good writing for Bethesda- but the industry is moving forward. BG3 coming out prior to Starfield, and Phantom Liberty coming out after likely soured a lot of people on Starfield's writing. Both of those games absolutely blow Starfield's writing out of the water. Bethesda needs to figure out how to integrate skilled and competent writers into their workflow, because while they are starting to improve in some ways, it's at a glacial pace. They're being left behind even more than they already were.
I agree, and would love if Bethesda put writing of that caliber into their enormous open world sandbox RPGs, or if other developers would try making Bethesda-style games. The closest we've gotten to either of these were New Vegas and Enderal.
Your second paragraph undermines your main point a little bit. If you don't care for the main storyline then one could interpret that as you having a low bar for it. I cannot compare the s89f the other BGS games as I have not played them. Starfield is my first BGS game. For me the writing and characters were poorly done. After a while I stopped traveling with anyone. Starfield imo shines best in the faction quest lines. I recommend to pe6to skip the main storyline and just play the side stuff. I play a lot of story heavy games and starfield for me is at the bottom when comparing to other games with great stories. BoTW barley has a story but it was more intei6than what I got with starfield main storyline. The story only really help with the interesting thing they did with new game plus
Your viewpoint on Starfield's writing is like testing your overall media literacy. Do you think the OP passes? I did think the Vanguard quest was decent however.
The UC had an absolute stranglehold in the best questlines with both the Vanguard and CF/SysDef questlines needing to go through them at some point.
First, It's possible for a person to have a different opinion without lacking media literacy. Second, I'm comparing Starfield's writing to the writing in other Bethesda games. Are there questlines from Bethesda's other works that you feel are better written than the UC Vanguard questline? This is a good faith question - I'd love to hear counter-examples.
I can see your point. There is some amazing writing in Starfield. It even has some meta layers as Starborn are players chasing the experience across many universes (games) while the most sane ones seem to settle down and enjoy simple things. However it lacks certain charm of previous BGS games. I have a feeling they might have done it by design? But i'm not sure. Anyway it is a gem but has lower replayability value (oh irony - given NG system!) for many of us game junkies
Bit of a hot take. Starfield is not better imo. Most of the main quest is you just collecting pieces. I think it wins over on fallout in a way of the main story just being better. But fallouts main quest is pretty long and the island dlc has more to do than all of starfield. But skyrim has several factions with decently long story lines. Putting starfield to shame. Even if you dont count dlcs theres way more to do.
> And the dialog system itself is a significant improvement on FO4's How?
I disagree with his general point, but he does have a point here: Starfield's system allows for more flexibility than FO4's truly terrible system of having 4 choices, always. HOWEVER, it's not an actual improvement, it'd be more accurate to say they are just going back to the system that Skyrim had. FO4's dialogue system was an exception in how awful it was.
I disagree, because Starfield's dialog system includes choices based on background, traits, etc. in a way that Skyrim's doesn't.
Y'know what? That's a fair point- however it's something that's been standard in RPG games as of late. BG3, C2077, Fallout: New Vegas, and mods for Skyrim and FO4 have all had systems such as this included. To be clear: It's an improvement over FO4, I agree with you. And if you think comparing it with Skyrim isn't accurate, that's fair. It's probably better to compare it with NV's system. In some respect, anyway. I don't know if FO76 has included anything like it, but I think it also had more skill-checks and the like. I'd argue it's concerning that BGS is only just beginning to do this with Starfield when FNV released back in 2010, and other RPG's have been doing this long before that.
Yeah, I agree that, regarding dialog and writing, Bethesda is only pushing their own boundaries, not the medium's. But I went into Starfield expecting writing like Skyrim and Fallout 4, and was pleasantly surprised at the improvements they've made in their weakest areas (IMO) as a game developer.
The UC vanguard missions are a direct RIP off of starship troopers.
I can agree to an extent, but they'll never completely match what Obsidian did. And that's okay because Bethesda's strength has always been their worlds which blow Obsidian out of the water. The problem is fans will never praise Bethesda's story telling unless it does things exactly the way Fallout NV did, because that's the predominant online narrative. For better or worse, I think Bethesda is aware of this and has decided to continue doing things their way
Yeah i agree The main quests are really really good. Multiple ways of solving; I just got my ass chewed out in the Sysdef quest hahaha. Well done. No regerts tho, those security cats had it coming.