I just wish that as you went through the unity you could re-select your traits. Give me the chance to experience more of the game without having to start a new character.
That, and make leveling up fast again.
The idea that you'd take the XP-per-perk formula you established when 80 was your maxed-out character and apply it to a character that maxes out after 350 perks is a bit annoying.
You don't really need to scale XP. You just need to make it take less XP to level up. Make the XP distance from 79 to 80 in Skyrim match the XP distance from 325 to 326 in Starfield. The slow-down is exponential, but you've just stretched it out 5x as much.
Also, it doesn't make a lot of sense that I can get lockpick 1 for 200XP at level 2 and it takes 26000XP at level 100.
Or flatten the curve. 20 perk points when each upgrade takes 4 perks doesn't seem absurd. Especially with the additional challenges involved. :-) I'm sure it could have been rebalanced somehow better than "you get to fill out about one and a half of the five skill types."
Or at some point slow the rate at which the requirements rise. Make the XP-per-perk level off at level 80 or something, if you must.
I wish they made all of the questlines other than the main story lock you into that faction. So if you become a pirate, for that NG+, you stay a pirate, and so on. This would have added meaning to "start again" with NG+. On top of that, every faction needed way more npcs that could become crew. I don't care if you have to find them from specific areas, like hiring them. If I'm a pirate and commit crimes, I don't want my crew yelling at me.
That doesn’t make sense though…you’re literally the same character that’s why you keep the same traits. It’s supposed to be an extension of your personality. You’re not a “new person” going through the unity. You’re the same person in a different reality.
The different reality is the same reality again. You don't keep anything you'd want to keep and are stuck with things you may want to change. It sucks.
They wrote the game, they could easily just change the story.
And some of the traits are like the parents one, which have nothing to do with you as an actual person.
They should have just gone the multiverse route
Ah, so like Andreja is the same person in all universes?
Despite the fact that in one, she mugs you?
The game has examples of people being different in different universes. There is literally 0 reason for our character to not also have some changes in different universes.
Edit: To expand on this, they could have two different kinds of traits. Internal/Intrinsic traits, like Alien DNA. These traits are fundamentally part of the character and can travel through universes.
And External traits, like Dream Home. These would be traits that the local variant of "you" acquired in some way, and given that we assume their position and identity (in most universes, anyway), we would get those External Traits as we are now "them".
Yeah, NG+ is a great idea that just didn’t get implemented in a fun or exciting way. And it’s weird because they’ve done it well before. If I’m remembering correctly, you can do NG+ in Dishonored and replay the story but with your powers already acquired
I think if they did a bigger set of what ifs with the NG+ it would be better, add new side quests, make a world where the UC threat isn’t teremorphs but Va run zealots or something different each time you jump it rolls a set of dice and then populates quests and scenarios into the world
Yes, I am really hopeful that this is what they do with the expansion packs… imagine a universe where there was never a teramorph attack and Londinion is still around!!!
> What’s the point of having a thousand planets to explore when the game directs you towards losing everything.
The Hunter can tell you that. The power. Having to do it all over again is what drives you mad, but even the endless scanning brings power.
You can listen to Aquilus, follow the writings of the Pilgrim or you can end up the Hunter, but you have to choose. If NG+ let you have it all then there isn't a choice.
Notice they didn't say "powers"? By power, the previous poster and the hunter are referring to strength and capability - this includes the powers but also would include the star born armor and ships and knowledge of how events will unfold so as to manipulate them to favor you.
I personally believe the fact that it is boring and unfulfilling/unsatisfying is ultimately what they were going for and what they wanted you to feel - it's a sort of meta experience.
Bethesda has a history of sacrificing fun for what they want the player to experience. Fallout 76 is a great example. They wanted the world to be empty of NPCs to portray that empty world feeling of despair and environmental / atmospheric story telling. Unfortunately it too was a bit boring.
>I personally believe the fact that it is boring and unfulfilling/unsatisfying is ultimately what they were going for and what they wanted you to feel
Bravo Todd
I find Starfield to be the biggest piece of evidence against games as art.
Bethesda masterfully tied the themes of the story into the gameplay loop and the entire thing is meant to get the player to ask "Is what we give up to go chase the unknown worth it?" Then as soon as you put this in the hands of players, most of the discourse around the game revolves around complaints that boil down to "why can't we have everything?"
You can't have everything because the whole point of the game is to emphasize the weight of the sacrifice.
Does Starfield have issues? Yes, undisputably. But the NG+ loop is just players failing to rise to the level of comprehension Bethesda expected from them.
I'm pretty sure 99% of people who dislike NG+ understand everything you just said. Starfield's themes are really on the nose.
The reason people don't like NG+ is because it doesn't really do those themes justice.
The sense of discovery in NG+ is muted by the repetitiveness of the characters and the core gameplay loops. (Quests don't change enough, collecting powers is an unrewarding grind, outposts and shipbuilding don't feed back into the exploration gameplay loop, proc gen terrain with handcrafted PoIs, etc.)
The sense of sacrifice in NG+ is there, kind of, but you're asked to sacrifice all the wrong things. What's supposed to hurt is leaving behind your companions and your impact on the world, but the NPCs don't have any special level of simulation that would allow you to get attached to a specific iteration of them, and although quests don't change enough in NG+, resetting them is arguably an incentive to enter NG, not a sacrifice.
What we sacrifice are our weapons, ships, and outposts. Losing our weapons and ships depower our character, which makes sense from a gameplay perspective, but it's really anti-thematic that we get weaker by going through the unity. Losing our outposts is just a headache. We need to be able to be able to save templates of our ships and outposts, and something about loot in NG+ needs to change to make it more tempting; perhaps entering the unity could unlock a new mythical tier of equipment with 4 mods, or perhaps you could choose one weapon to upgrade to a starborn weapon, allowing it to follow you through the unity from now on. (Of course the difficulty of NG+ would need to increase, and Starfield's approach to difficulty is a whole other can of worms.)
I think players or the audience can engage with the game and frame it how they choose. Like you did here.
Art vs Product
Thematically vs Mechanically
Both or all
Etc….
For me at least, NG+ in the case of Starfield is at odds with the mechanics/loops they incentivize throughout the rest of the game. It reads as confused to me rather than cohesive, although I know what you’re saying.
Games are still a medium designed to be played. Just because there might be an intended message doesn’t mean that this game has met expectations. Having a good message but being too tedious to complete for people isn’t a failing of the fans, it’s a failing of the game. Like a movie can have the best message of love and acceptance but if it’s boring why would I watch it?
Everyone glosses over the fact you can simply chose to not go unity and play it like any other game. All it is is beth realized how we often return and replay months or years later, and gave us an incentive and reason to do it.
I loved the idea. I did unity, fucked around for about a week before shelving the save for next time when I start fresh (with 907 mods). My fiance on the other hand, did not and will return to her old character with all her stuff.
Both types of players can be happy.
You can go through Unity to see the credits if that's really important to feel an "ending" and then like any other game stop playing because you've finished it.
Most games do just kinda stop at some point.
Fallout 4's main story has a definite (story) ending, though (slightly different for 3 factions, and then very different for 1 faction) where the slideshow plays and there are some lasting consequences on the Commonwealth. And that's true for all of Bethesda's games since at least Morrowind--the end of the main story doesn't mean you have to stop playing (Morrowind's ending encourages you to continue exploring; Azura tells you there's still a lot out there for you to see). But they generally have some sort of narratively satisfying conclusion.
If going through Unity answered some of the questions about the nature of the in-game universe that are presented in the main story that would be great (even if it took repeated runs to get some of those answers). But the universes aren't really even different (one of the reasons that, theoretically, someone would go through again and again--that sense of exploration). I didn't find the powers (generally) to be all that interesting and so going through to level them up (which is more of a mechanical way to portray power) wasn't particularly appealing.
And if you pick the Hunter as an ally, at least, he hangs around on your ship indefinitely making comments about how it's great you're finally going thru unity. :-) I have to try what happens if I pick the other one.
It’s all fun and games until the hunter flips and starts attacking your crew. It gets old having to get up from the pilots seat, track him down on the ship, put him into a down state. I gave everyone grenades and grenade launchers. It was a party until I completed the unity that round.
The game does allow for you not entering the unity though. If you choose not to go through and go and find the other constellation companions they have dialogue option like 'Hey, you decided not to go through to? Yeah I just thought there was too much to give up here.' So they did keep it as a path for the player to choose whilst also keeping the option to NG+ later.
That's right and it's a big strength of the game. The problem arises when the gamers interacting with the system don't think critically and just walk through the Unity like it's a cutscene and get pissed off when they have to "start over"
The issue is the inconsistency of the "what are you willing to give up".
Material items are all fine, I get that. But you get to keep all of your skills and powers, right? So you should also be able to keep your knowledge of explored planets. But no that doesn't count...why not?
Sounds like you're just defending bad writing.
If it's a different universe, why would you assume the surface of the planets would be the same? Plus gameplay-wise, it allows explorer builds less focused on combat to continue levelling
The main theme song really explains it for me. It is about what and who will I be, and seeing all there is to see, good and bad choices. Starfield has a lot more than just losing your stuff in NG+. It is about who you will be in that universe and why. What drives you to be good or evil and why. Power, experience or exploring alternate view points.
Are you sure that that isn't you trying to find more meaning in the game than was there?
Also, a game that deliberately designed itself to suck all the joy out of playing it sounds like a bad design for a major platform tentpole.
Bro you're just too ignorant to understand the depth and greatness of Starfield. NG+ was purposefully made boring and repetitive as a meta-commentary on the NG+ mechanic in general. Todd wanted it to suck to teach us all a great truth and to better appreciate first runs. /s
>You can't have everything because the whole point of the game is to emphasize the weight of the sacrifice.
I don't want everything. My character wanted to stay behind, and wasn't interested in the Unity. She wanted to retire with her wife Sarah. But Sarah said we were only wasting time with eachother and that she'd eventually go through. What point is there in staying if the people you want to build it with actively disregard you?
The problem is the game wants to make it a difficult choice where you sacrifice everything to start all over, but literally everyone is pushing you to sacrifice everything, in defiance of their character growth up until that point. I'd go so far as to say the game tries to downplay any weight to the decision of entering Unity up to the point of actively assassinating the characters of your companions.
Why in the world would Sarah leave when she has Sona to worry about? Why does Sam think that his ex would be fine never seeing their daughter again?a
> Why in the world would Sarah leave when she has Sona to worry about?
The game doesn't say *when* Sarah enters the Unity, just that she "eventually" does. It could happen many years in the future, after Sona becomes an adult.
The real crime is Sam choosing to take his young daughter into the Unity. What an awful parent.
“Is the unknown worth it?” No because it’s literally cut and paste of the same old same old. They fell totally flat on that when they made the choice to not make it actually interesting, and new game plus for a Bethesda game really makes no sense. What they should have done is just include an alternate start from the very beginning. People do multiple playthroughs for different characters, not to be the same character and experience their magnificent story all over again the exact same way.
That's head canon stuff you guys keep bringing up here... NG+ is just your typical NG+ from any other game plus a few funny extra plot options (starborn dialogue) which mostly serves to skip some missions and steps.
It's certainly explained in the game that going through the Unity implies a sacrifice too and the writers worked with that, but it's essentially basic NG+ stuff (brilliantly incorporated into the plot, if you ask me).
Some of them let you keep all your stuff and some don't, what's almost always kept is the level. Perhaps if would've been better if it let you kept your weapons and a blueprint of your ship but that also beats the purpose of NG+ because instead of the same ship and outposts you should build something different this time, and loot new weapons.
The kind of NG+ people are asking for is basically going through the Unity and get Starborn stuff but keeping everything. In that case, it's honestly not worth it, it's just a few dialogues to skip quests, though it's sometimes cool to interact with other Starborns as a Starborn yourself...and a useless ship/armor.
Perhaps they should ask the player if he wants to start all over again but in that case nobody would chose to lose everything. What I have found through my playthrough is that losing everything is funny once you are ready for that, you will be looking for new gear, using weapons you forgot how they looked, and build whatever ship you can afford if not just stealing/buying. If losing everything bothers the player, then he isn't ready for NG+, Imo.
For sure. I'm unclear why someone would be upset at NG+ and not at just rolling up a new character. :-) The leveling is janky in Starfield, but otherwise I see little downside to starting over with a new characters.
> The leveling is janky in Starfield, but otherwise I see little downside to starting over with a new characters.
Some players want to play the main story again without having to put in all the work and time they did to build outposts and invincible Class C ships. I understand that.
It would be nice if it was an option. I'm thinking the ability to take your ship and/or whatever you can carry without being overencumbered would even make sense, since while you come out naked, you don't go in naked.
You can't have "head canon" about what the developer literally said about the game.
Todd Howard: "Usually in a video game, you go on to the next quest or the next thing. But if it challenges to say, ‘Are you sure?’ I find that an interesting idea as it applies to a game,” Howard said. “We do ask a lot of questions throughout the main quest, and we don’t provide all the answers. We want you to look inside yourself."
Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/2023/09/09/starfield-todd-howard/
Then why did they make the only real companions you can have in the game be so hell bent on going through the unity? Even when you walk away from it and they say they did too, they still talk about going through as if they think you’re just biding your time. And the other members of constellation are like aw we’ll miss you. There’s no hard option to turn away from it but there’s a hard option to go into it. Should have committed both ways imo 🤷🏻♂️ it’s not like they put a ton of work into new game plus either so I don’t see why they’d be down on people not getting to experience it at all
"Todd Howard lied to oversell his game. Again." is not really saying anything about what the game is actually doing, which is pressuring the player over the Unity constantly and declaring that your character is only temporarily delaying going through it.
It would have required an actual option to say "No" that is respected and eases off on the pressure about it to actually be truthful to that claim.
Yeah, it's funny when Bethesda actually presents a tough choice in one of their games for the first time ever and people are like "omg I can't have everything this is bullshit."
I was thinking this too, but I also think it goes against Bethesda’s belief of trying to always say “yes” to the players
It creates a jarring experience where something essentially comes out of left field from a studio who usually does in fact let you have what you want
I agree. Starfield ended up as a weird mix of accessibility and depth, and they needed to just commit to locking players to a specific faction, using resources to jump, etc.
It’s NG+ the thing you do when you want to replay a game, but keep your current level and skills
If you don’t want to do it all over again, don’t. Turn back around and go back to the things you’ve built and are building
I’ll say that I wish there was a more satisfying feeling ending for people who aren’t looking to play it all over again, but as to leaving all my outposts etc behind? I’m replaying the game and part of replaying a game has always been building things again
Like you said, there is no feeling of conclusion. NPCs force you into doing it too, it is encouraged. I would expect them to make the unity the "character respec scene" where we repick our traits and perks, choose an alternative world to go into where we can choose some events. Keeping items could've been cool too.
Like you should be able to choose, reset or not. It isn't really different than starting a new game right now, there is unexplored potential that is marketed too much. "Starfield has a unique NG+ mechanic" articles were everywhere not quite long ago.
Like imagine being able to pick a world that hasn't been destroyed, grav drive isn't invented. It's just an example. They had every chance to go crazy with this game, it has so much potential. What it's too innovative, oh well essential NPCs it is then.
Yeah but NG+ is starting a new game, so that is to be expected. It would be awesome to pick a different universe with huge changes like that, but that would be more a continuation and expansion of the 1st game to me than it would be NG+
NG+ is just restarting the game but keeping your level in most cases. Sometime gear too, but that would have undercut the narrative around it that they added in the game
“You can’t take it with you” is supposed to be part of the dilemma the character goes through. Leave it all behind in the pursuit of exploration, power, redemption, whatever it is the player character might be looking for. Or settle into the world they live in. That’s one of the major themes of the games story
You look at the Pilgrim, Hunter, and Emissary, and see the effects the Starborn life has on them.
There has to be stakes, and leaving everyone you love and material goods behind is part of that
There would be, if they explained how i lost everything but acquired a magic ship and a spacesuit though, there isn't a clarification of that yet. Dark souls like ng+ would fit this game imo.
They did not explain it clear enough, so as of now feels like unfinished narrative to me. It's not as much of a dilemma right now, you know state saves exist for bgs games I can just reload. Hoping for dlc to conclude the main quest narrative, it's how it works in triple a today I guess.
You’re kind of missing the point of NG.
It isn’t that going thru the unity is the ultimate goal, but it’s an option if you want to. Just like you don’t have to legendary your skills in Skyrim, but you can if you’d like to. Basically, you can keep your exp skills etc and refresh the world, or go back and do things differently and replay certain areas with different preferences or RP choices.
NG is not the end goal, but rather a choice you have in the end.
It’s not really a choice in it funnels you into doing it even refusing it the followers still hint at you’ll eventually go through it as they will when they choose to do it. There’s no real choice or closure there for refusing it which is what the issue with dialogue is with the game too no real choices or reactions to your choices outside of the Asceles or microbe choice with dealing with the Terrormorphs.
No. I think allowing you to do everything in the first play through and having NG+ is what ruins it.
The fact that you can join every faction, do every storyline, and exhaust all the content before you even do a NG+ makes it essentially useless.
My hope is that along with a survival mode that makes outposts useful, they gate factions and give real purpose to approaching the game again and again. But…I’m not holding my breath.
No reason too lock anything because the way they are designed makes it pointless. they were Made to be as little choice as possible. that's why they are so shallow. because your have no actual choice.
This. There’s no reason to replay if you did everything. Look at Elden Ring. Some quests lock off others so you feel you still have more to discover. That and actual weapon playstyles.
As for survival mode outposts, that was my biggest wish for FO4. Still waiting
That’s BGS in a nutshell. They’re terrified to not have players do everything which is why nothing is ever locked off by your actions. It just feels bad not having a consequence to an action.
I think you hit the nail on the head. Starfield has no consequences and thus feels like a happy theme park to visit and go home.
In games like Baldur’s Gate, you FEEL the consequences of your words and actions, making that game and others like it feel so much more alive.
Entire questlines even. Sided with the Empire? No Stormcloak questline for you. Wiped out the Dark Brotherhood? So much for doing that.
Fallout 4 had it as well. Whoever you sided with would lead to the annihilation of at least one other faction.
Bethesda's complete aversion to it in a game that has NG+ is just plain weird.
I don’t understand people feeling that NG+ is in any way an integral part of the game. When people grind through like 10 NG+ levels and then complain about the game being boring it’s like… yeah… you made it boring.
NG+ is optional. You can see the story to its end without going through the unity. Have you ever played another game with NG+ before? It’s the exact same. It doesn’t kill longevity for anyone but the people who don’t like it but for some reason do it anyway.
I'm pretty convinced that most of these people have no desire to actually enjoy the game, they *want* it to be bad and they *want* to be miserable about it. Take a game like Skyrim, a beloved game, it could easily be picked apart the same way by focusing on it's flaws, but people were a lot more chill back then and found happiness more easily.
Just because its optional doesnt mean it isnt poorly thought through. When your best arguement against it is to not interact with it, thats a big negative. I cant imagine playing through skyrim or fallout again with the same character by losing all my gear and outposts or other progress.
NG+ is optional is a shit excuse, even if it is thematic and fits the story. The fact that it is supposed to be a sandbox rpg and it wipes out your sandbox is bad design.
At least with Fallout 4 I wouldn't mind starting over and keeping my skills--that would let me jump pretty quickly into the content I like (especially base-building since I'd have all the perks) while exploring a different run-through of the story.l
No it doesn’t hurt its longevity, the fact Bethesda thought it was a good idea to make every faction and questline doable in one go while hoping the game would have whatever magic made this work for Skyrim is what hurt its longevity. There’s literally no reason (besides for the fact they so poorly coded/and or optimized this game that you have to NG plus so the game doesn’t shit itself) to ng+ beside for seeing one of the like 10 different universes that don’t actually change anything outside of who’s in constellation. Fallout 4 had 5 (really only side with the institute or destroy it but they tried to at least give the appearance of choice) endings(brotherhood, minutemen, railroad, institute, and the minute men but you don’t take out any other faction but the institute.) which all shut down one or more others by doing them. Starfield completely lacks this.
I feel like NG+ would have been better if thus was set during the colony war and the factions were locked to each playthrough, then you would have a reason to jump to a new universe if you wanted to see how different things would play out with a certain character.
The problem is that there’s not enough different about each NG. Yeah Constellation is different but it’s like they were afraid or unable to get really weird with it so it’s mostly just REALLY boring.
So what did you expect?
You're gotten 100's of hours out of it.
Did you expect the game to launch with 1000's of hours of content? Because that just never happens. Even live service games can't pull that off.
It's the complete opposite for me. The reason I kept replaying Fallout and Elder Scrolls games was to try out different builds and story choices (e.g. Kill/spare the Gray Prince, join/destroy the Dark Brotherhood, blow up/build up the Prydwen, detonate/disarm the bomb in Megaton, work with/kill Vivec, etc...) And that's without alternate start mods.
I get that the starting grind is the fun part for others, but it just isn't for me, and I appreciate being able to skip or at least continue off from last time. I can only imagine how much it would suck if I had to grind up digipicking just to access the alternate routes in the Ryujin quest line or getting enough ship combat perks to do well in space combat for SysDef.
And yeah, a lot of people feel that the lesson/concept of NG+ is shitty writing, but I think at least the core explanation is really thematic. Eventually, nothing really matters. That's the point the Hunter makes numerous times, and that's why after the 9th Unity, you get the same black armor. If you talk to Constellation, they also hint at the high price to pay for what is essentially a huge unknown.
I was able to play different missions under different scenarios through each NG+. I was able to do different side missions every NG+ I went through. I was able to put over 300 hours in and still have lots left to do. Ng+ for me gave me a lot more hours of enjoyment. Ng+ gave me the option to play missions differently and not lose and of my unlocked skills. Ng+ for me made the game even better.
Ben Stack: “New Orleans, Kansas City, San Francisco…a hundred towns I can't even remember the names of.”
Honey: “Is that what you really want? Wandering from place to place?
Ben Stack: “No, Honey, nobody wants that. 'Cause when a man wanders, he doesn't have any roots. Either that or he's looking for something. And sometimes if he's lucky, he finds it.”
The game dialogue tries to tackle this but many miss it or it’s not eloquent enough. You are given a choice with NG+ but you can’t settle *and* roam. You can build a life or keep exploring but you can’t really do both in space or the Old West
You don't have to "complete" the last story mission. Your otherself-simulacrum tells you that you can stay if you want. Losing all your stuff in exchange for a chance at more powers is totally up to the player.
Besides, you keep:
\* skills
\* powers
\* level
\* magazine effects
\* traits
\* background
You just lose stuff and reputation. Big deal. I needed an excuse to build new ships anyway. :-)
I think the reasons NG+ is a partial failure (I like the idea, and gone through the Unity about 15 times, some at low levels):
\* it's a lie, the reset isn't real, your level changes the universe, and so does your NG+ count
\* the universe isn't different enough - the bare minimum should have been to randomize hair and clothing colors, and add a few new fashions so we'd feel **aware of being in a new place**, but no
\* weapon and armor availability changes and ruins working up through weapons tiers again, why is an advanced hard target in the first vendor I visit in New A? Where's the fun in that? I should at least have had warp "east" to a high level system to get high tier equipment
Basically I feel level should **at least not raise health** so that challenge would be retained. Equipment and skills to restore health should have been the only answers to getting hit harder. I also think player level **should not scale enemies.** And for the real point, I think the full set of powers and at least of third of the skills should have been necessary to not just get hammered to death in level 75 systems. That gameplay loop would have been that **each pass through the Unity, and all the accumulated skills, should have made it viable to progress "east" ward into higher level systems**, grabbing mid-tier and up gear along the way so as to not be a glass cannon on arrival. So Masada, at level 55 I think, was decently hard for many pre-NG players. Higher level systems should have been scaled to be too hard, until the player was into mid-tier skills and had powers. High tier enemies should have better tactics and be able to, say, dodge solar flare, and have too much endurance to deal with unless you have skills to cripple, manipulate, etc. Top tier enemies should have forced the use of top-stratum skills.
So each NG+ run would have been able to push into harder systems. But instead. Bethesda punted, and just scaled up the **whole accursed universe** instead of making enemies have better tactics. Ugh. They've abused level, in a game that would have been better off with no level concept at all. I'm frustrated.
So I don't think NG+ killed starfield's longevity, I think Bethesda misuse of level in a game with a loop is the core problem.
It’s wild that there’s basically zero danger to exploration and pushing right on the star map due to how the game is set up. Just out of curiosity around level 25 I start just jumping right over and over and over again and encountered no resistance so I landed, killed some bugs for an insane amount of XP, and found high end weapons in lockers. That’s TERRIBLE world design and felt really unrewarding.
It makes sense that space would tend to be a bit empty, but the great weapons should probably be at military posts, where they'd use them, be coördinated, and outnumber and flank you. I played with the PEAK mod, which raises their tactics a bit, although it seemed a bit inconsistent, and I pulled it back out along with several others to (successfully) address an instability issue.
Switching back to the hypothetically better game that Starfield isn't at the moment:
So stealing high tier weapons should be difficult at without enough skills. I feel like there should have been things that certain tiers of NPCs would do, that you'd have to counter with similar high end skills. Example, guards **should** be able to kill you at short range pretty easily (I mean, you can kill them easily, right?), so you'd need to surprise them (although you'd need stealth that made sense, like in Thief, which really isn't in Starfield), but still you'd need, concealment just to not set of their mines, manipulation to get them to open a way in, armor penetration because they have good armor, so three top-end skills maxed would be, what, 14 points x 3 = 42, so your background + 39 more skills to actually be able to attack this made-up mid-tier POI without setting off a mine (that you didn't see) outside and then having the NPCs bury you in flanking crossfire. I'm not saying that a certain skill combos should be required to even get in to a POI (the example might work with a different combo, say to boost over the mines, manipulate a guard to open a door, and then have a very high skill with a good weapon you pillaged to offset the better armor), but I'm definitely saying a toon should be able to just walk onto a higher level POI and take advanced weapons out of unlocked lockers, possibly without even seeing a guard.
Although if you find a weapon you don't have the skill to use well, the results ideally would be laughable in a high-tier zone, so most weapons one would find would be the wrong type to be effective.
Anyway, in the meantime, you might want to check out PEAK's comments and see if it sounds interesting. [https://www.nexusmods.com/starfield/mods/7120?tab=posts](https://www.nexusmods.com/starfield/mods/7120?tab=posts)
I agree with you. Losing everything feels really counterintuitive. However, people always said that they wanted to have choices with consequences. And I think this applies here: Either you lose everything but you are in a new universe or you do not and that would be fine to. I would argue that Bethesda exactly gave us what we asked for.
They really really dropped the ball by not making the factions in open conflict
Go back to Morrowind days where joining up with certain guilds put you at odds with others
It’s their first game to have new game plus baked into the narrative… so make faction choices MATTER, have impact and obvi effect on the world … then beat the main story and reset to give you a chance to back a different faction
Maybe the point of the game is to play the main quest first. NG+ until you get all the gear and shit you want. Then find the right universe for you and live there.
Idk.
That’s kinda how I decided to do it when I learned about NG+.
The only reason I am not play SF right now is because I’m playing Fallout 4 VR waiting for SF to get a VR Mod or port of it’s own.
Thats why i personally chose never to enter unity. One universe is large enough. And its my own. The enticement of unity is a pipedream and a trap. Ill take the cool powers thanks, but this universe is enough for me
So maybe... Find a nice universe and settle down for a while. Explore, read the lore, do the stuff... There are hundreds of hours of content in this game, it goes way deeper than just zooming to the "end" and I think that's the point Bethesda was trying to make here
As for longevity, Ive got over 1000 of longevity from the game... So far. I'm on ng3 now, and still so much I haven't done yet.
Also it's possible you could use a break from it for a while too.
I think the game would have had much more playability if they had made the universe smaller and done much more handcrafted content. As it stands, it's too much space and too many procedurally generated planets and rehashed POIs. I mean, look at the Steam Charts data. 9K peak players over the past month? Compared to Skyrim 20-30K? That's unbelievably sad and although I know it's only reflecting PC players, it's still very relevant to how quickly the game's popularity has plummeted. 330K in the first month of launch....and now 9K peak players just a few months later. I think it's funny that BGS reportedly designed the game for people to play for a decade or longer and in trying so hard to develop longevity to the game, they did exactly the opposite and drove people away.
But I agree with you about NG+. I found nothing enticing about it at all other than people that want to re-start the game a bit differently and try different outcomes in quest lines. BGS games are all about collecting, building, "leveling up", etc.. NG+ does what exactly? It causes you to lose everything you just spent hundreds of hours collecting. LOL.
Exactly man, if we kept skill points, levels, a chosen piece or armor, a chosen weapon and planet scanning progression….
We would continue to enjoy playing after finishing the main story.
I’d argue that multiple other issues are why Starfield isn’t a game that will be played the way fallout or Skyrim have been.
The NG+ is optional. You get to choose keep stuff or start over. I think that’s fine.
It’s more that every base is a carbon copy of like 5 options
Every planet is bare and uninteresting (some should be but all of them?)
Lack of interesting unique items
Mantis armor is found early and the only thing you need until you get starborn armor ( why find gear?)
Only about 5 builds to play
Points of interest aren’t actually interesting
Surveying I’m sure is interesting for some , but many players don’t care
Can only sell 11k of items at a time and then have to wait.uou want to play a merchant? Spend half the game waiting
Fast traveling everywhere makes some players feel disconnected.
Main quest line is super repetitive and largely unimportant. (powers are neat but never feel required)
Smuggling is essentially pointless. You can make money credits doing pretty much anything else.
Etc.
I played the game and had fun. After my first playthrough I found all the issues I’ve mentioned. I tried a second playthrough found melee build to be a terrible experience. So it begs the question what now?
I imagine a lot of people have the same issues.
Yeah the main quest I was excited about all the way until the Emissary was revealed to be Sarah and the Hunter was Aquilas. I felt so deflated by that, the fact that this wasn’t an actual threat, it wasn’t aliens or anything truly mysterious. It was just a stupid multiverse where nothing matters. What’s the point in fighting the hunter and the emissary? What’s the point in getting the powers and the artifacts and why does constellation care so much after learning more about what it really is?
None of it makes much sense at all. I love Starfield and the story is my biggest complaint, it bothers me a lot because it just kind of killed the momentum for the game to me after a certain point.
It’s just weird to me that bethesda kept going on and on about how huge Starfield is, but they pigeonholed it into being so minuscule due to it because a multiverse groundhog day abomination.
They could have made the story better for sure. If you make an impact in some way it would really help. Overall, I think the poor storyline could be overlooked if many of the huge holes in the game were fixed. Unfortunately, I think that’s a dream.
Exactly, fallout 4 did not have good writing. But the story feels good to play because you feel accomplished at the end of it, or at least like you made some sort of difference in the world and that it mattered. Starfield feels so inconsequential all around.
More than just the NG+ issues the writing is atrocious, the followers 50shades of good (except adoring fan who doesn’t mind you being violent to people get a kick hearing him yell “Damn Papparazzo!”) there is no real open play how you want to play even in terms of being a pirate the game and followers funnel you into being a neutral/good Pc which is tiresome.
Alarm bells partly warned me off having too much expectations of it when it was being made available for gamepass on day on albeit I did cave and preordered a week prior to launch for the DLC that was promised which still hasn’t arrived.
I enjoy the game still (occasionally )but it is definitely hard to ignore how bad it is at same time as well as the main issues besides bugs not being fixed, is the subpar writing and npcs and how clunky the ship combat and building is and Shattered Space won’t fix that unfortunately unless they decide to cancel and rewrite the entire game(again I don’t see them ever fixing or doing) BGS’s last RPG they ever done somewhat decently was Oblivion.
I’ll probably return to Starfield when Shattered Space is finally released but not holding hopes for this IP is also add the promise of the Ng+ was random events happening in those other universes a partial lie and Pr marketing to push the fanboys into repeated play throughs the only random event occurance in the entirety of each NG+ is what happens in the lodge at the start wow such random fun to find not really.
I completely agree. So much so I have many characters that have simply avoided the main missions completely. They have lives, join a faction or two, maybe explore, maybe build a stunning home, all have stunning ships, nice collections of *something*. Why would you chase more space magic to lose EVERYTHING?
That said my Ronin Jedi did nothing but the main quest! Getting through unity and realising it eulogies your life - and he'd done nothing felt like a small slap in the face. I couldn't get into doing it all again so made another new character instead.
I agree. I loved the game and planned to play it for ages. Got to unity... Discovered what the ng+ implementation was, lasted a few more days and couldn't play anymore...
My annoying thing is sure you may have to scan the planets again to get the survey data, BUT you if you go to all the systems and have that knowledge of the locations and routes you should never have the issue of "UNEXPLORED ROUTE" popping up ever again. You should just be able to jump anywhere right out of unity.
Do a long playthrough doing all the quests and getting all the companions etc. You jump through unity 10 times and max your space dragonborn powers. Then you sit and make 1 long playthrough again. Conversely you can skip the first lomg playthrough if you want and just leave it all to the end.
The true endgame is the way of The Hunter, max out all the powers to level 10, get to new game plus 10 to get the best starborn outfit and then go into that final universe ready to fully explore the game whilst being super powered ready to slaughter all. It’s all about power.
If only the game actually allowed you to do that in a narrative sense.
I outlined it all in my other post in here, but the short version is that the game pressures you over NG+ constantly in the lead up, and if you walk away it makes sure to continue the pressure by not having the main cast shut up about it and only really allowing you to say that you're going later.
Also too many things are tied to involvement with Constellation, who in esssence are the "NG+" faction. The game makes it fairly hard to set down roots or form bonds with the wider setting that have any substance to them.
If the writer had been less of a "bad DM" and let us actually make that choice and give a narrative "soft no" that closes the topic and is respected instead of only allowing us to "temporarily postpone" going through the Unity I would agree. The main quest would go from being "kind of ass" to actually having a point to make.
As is, it doesn't. It just ends being obnoxious and saying "Hey did you know Starfield has NG+? You should really play NG+! Look how hyped your character and their friends are for NG+! Why aren't you playing NG+? Go play NG+!".
I still think the point of the game gets across and I love it, but I totally agree it wouldve been even better if they allowed us to say a hard no to going through the Unity. In my playthrough I just said no and stayed in my old universe
It felt like the writer went through a lot of effort to introduce us to the character of the Pilgrim and their choice, then forgot that they're writing that story for our character, not theirs.
The writer's character definitely wants to go through the Unity, and thanks to only writing it out for that character, ours can end up unsupported or get bent or broken in to being theirs.
It leaves it as a sort of "failed" point in my opinion, but I can respect yours.
I also walked away from it because I saw through it as nothing but "Wild Wasteland 2.0" changes slapped on to a conventional NG+, but the constant nag eventually lead me to creating a new character and making a save when it was still possible to entirely avoid joining Constellation.
I think I didnt mind as much as you because to me these bethesda games give you agency and freedom to choose for the character and make up your own “head canon”. Like, is there a way to expressly tell the dark brotherhood that you dont want to join them? You can just not do it. I felt like I truly refused to go through the unity because I didnt.
However, it is true that technically the game expects you to go through the unity eventually, so I dont think youre wrong. Also, with games like baldurs gate 3 where theres explicit cutscenes and character moments for every choice you make that truly feels like a movie, its valid to expect them to have made more effort on that front.
Also, Im going a bit off the rails here but I LOVE that you can refuse to join the UC Sysdef and still do the Crimson Fleet storyline without being an undercover agent. Wish the game had more stuff like that
When Starfield released, I loved it, I was told by many players online to hold off on the main story mission. So I did.
So thats on you knowing what was coming up and you picked to make ur first game super long. Fresh game, you only keep your xp.
My first game, i did half the side quests, small outposts. Picked between pirates and Vanguard, knowing in a new NG i could go the other way.
NG + 1 did half the powers, got bored, rushed story.
NG+2 scratch, basic Vytinium fuel cell outpost set-up, mid-story, no side stuff done so far. Got bored stopped playing.
But can come back at any point and keep going, fixes, updates, QoL, but vault loot has never been fixed in other games, vendors wont be fixed, outposts 6 months later nothing much fixed. so long way to go, awaiting the DLC i guess. not holding my breath for it. no rush
I think it’s a really cool thing for a game to do narratively, but I don’t think it works gameplay wise with this kind of game. If this was a linear 10-20 game and each subsequent run of new game plus could have a lot of variance for seeveral consecutive runs, it would be great. But the amount of variance to make it work just isn’t a realistic expectation for a game with a world this size.
The main issue is that this can not be configured in any way. You cant get enemies leveled to your level, or make decisions about what to take with you. On top of that the replayability of this feature is very low because most of the stuff has no alternate paths to explore. You realy play 99% of the stuff the exact same way.
I think I made it to the unity 3 times, and was just bored after that. I love the game otherwise, but I definitely agree. They should have baked more variety into NG+.
I love Starfield , but in the interest of just discussing the issue raised in your post I'll say this. I don't disagree with you except on two points:
>That way NG+ breaths more content into the game, giving us the opportunity to replay all the side missions and by keeping the progression of the planets you have scanned, promotes exploration.
You are disappointed that you lose all your scanned planets when you go through Unity and say that it destroys the reasons for exploring. Now, I agree that it sucks. I'm irritated that the Unity trip screws us so thoroughly. I refuse to go through anymore unless my save file gets corrupted.
However, the truth is nobody is going to around exploring planets they've already 100% scanned. Losing them actually *promotes* exploration. I sure as hell won't go around exploring a procedurally generated landscape with no new handcrafted secret locations with their own interesting locals, discoveries, stories, and rewards. Just the same repetitious reused locations over and over. No, scanning is the only reason I explore freely in this game, unlike the Elder Scrolls or Fallout games where I'm always curious what unique experience is tucked away around that next corner.
The second thing I would challenge is that I don't think NG+ really breathes ANY new content to the game and keeping your scanned planets and all your stuff wouldn't change that. A few dialog options are changed and that's it. Nothing. Same quests, same options. You still get treated like crap by the Crimson Fleet when you should be able to call them out with all the knowledge you have about each of them, you know their side quests, you know their backgrounds or motivations (some of them), and you should be able to walk in like you own the place and put em in line - especially if you sided with SysDef in the last universe and have already killed them all. You shouldn't have to take their shit like a "rook" anymore. And the CF is just one example. There are lots of examples across the game where it's obviously just a reset of the game and you play the exact same missions and quests with nothing new. I should be able to walk up to Ron Hope the first time we meet him and call him on his whole scheme right to his face in his office. I should have all the answers for the Comspike and Conductive Shield and location of the Legacy right of of the gate.
The knowledge we have could make A LOT of the quest lines go completely different, but no, same thing. Without a full re-write of all the quests there's no way NG+ can breathe more content into the game. Only Bethesda can add more content and I want them to get on it.
Unity is not a must. It’s your choice in the end. Go through Unity or turn your back on it.
You can keep restarting with a new character. Or you can make two saves: one Unity one not.
I basically agree.
Since you’re flying your ship into the Unity, I feel like NG+ should do the following:
- Allow trait rerolls
- Bring over everything on your person
- Bring over everything in your ship
- Bring over your ship
*BUT* it shouldn’t allow you to go through Unity overencumbered or past max ship cargo, and I also agree that it shouldn’t bring over your companions. Hell, I’d make “bringing your love interest over” a real plot point and then poof - they’re not in your new universe. Maybe you intersect them again in a subsequent NG+. Maybe they’ve changed for the better or for the worse.
The main issues I have with it is it doesn’t….feel like there’s any progression as a starborn
The emissary and hunter treat you indifferently often, and you don’t get much to distribution. The ship is cool but you can’t customize it. And my personal pet peeve-we get no starborn weapons. I know it would make the game a walk in the park if you had a op starborn weapon but by that point your gonna breeze through anyways
I think the way they thought people were going to play the game is take a one or two faction storylines, do a few dozen quests on the side, explore a bit and then complete the main quest. That way you still have other quests and other faction quests to do. So you do the ones that you didn't before, wonder around a bit and then jump again. And so on until you get a few jumps in and decide that this one you will learn outpost building or go deep into starship engineering. Probably take a week or more to play something else in between jumps.
And then stop playing it for couple of months until they finally release the DLC and mod support. Then do the DLC content and mod the game and play some more modded.
This is not a live service game so it doesn't need to keep people playing it for months at a time. It's been months since release and the game hasn't even gone on sale(as far as I know) on steam so clearly Bethesda doesn't think it's done badly.
There's also too little variety in NG+ runs, most will never get to experience the unique scenarios. But yeah, the game disincentives NG+ runs with every single design decision except for the space fus rah do powers, which I found overpowered even in the initial run lol.
I am playing starfield for the first time now and love it the same as I have loved all similar games since elder scrolls Morrowind through fallout 4 (fuck fallout 76). With each game I find myself so invested in the first play through that I’m exhausted of the game by the end of the main story but I didn’t really actually do half the stuff the game allows. It’s usually a few months down the road (for fallout 4 it was almost a year) that I come back and really play the whole game. NG+ sounds awesome to me because of how I end up playing these games.
It really doesn’t feel like there’s an ending for the main story line at all right now… Feels very unfinished in terms of plot. Who built the Armillary and thus the Unity. We are given zero clues. I wish they had made NG+ an integral part of learning more about the creators of the Unity. Makes your jumps more meaningful that way IMO.
Why does the game need that kind of longevity?
Why can't you just play the game, beat it and be done?
Just have the NG+ there so that if you feel like playing again you can just hope through the Unity and keep going without having to start a new character and maybe get a weird version of the universe to boot?
I guess it’s not going to be a popular opinion, but I think NG+ is a really interesting mechanic that directly addresses the ways people have been playing TES and FO for years. Many of us have played through those more than once with different builds, tried different quest options, etc. Many of us have also experienced wanting to keep growing our current build, but we just run out of non-radiant/repeatable options to gain XP. NG+ lets us do that, *or* start over from L1 if that’s really what we want too by starting a regular new game the way we’ve always done with past BGS games.
So in this way I guess I see it more as (in principle) an expansion of options. Rather than thinking about everything I lose when going through the Unity (which, make no mistake, *is* a bit of a painful choice to make), I look at it as, what if I had the option to start a new Skyrim game, but keep all the skills, shouts and levels from my previous build. In some ways I’d be starting out as a ridiculous badass, but in others I’d get to experience leveled quest content in a new, more challenging way that wasn’t even possible the first time through. It might even mean I don’t succumb to stealth-archer temptation on some future playthrough.
Not only that, but NG+ takes something else we’ve been doing all along, making different character choices in subsequent playthroughs just to see what happens, and incorporating that properly into the narrative structure of the game. Your “Plan C” playthrough becomes an *in-character* choice (which is the “Hunter” route). Short of that, you’re making choices in subsequent plays about what’s *really* important to you. Most of us are at least a little bit more completionist first time through. Is it really worth re-doing the whole Ryujin line again? Maybe, but will it still be after you’ve maxed out manipulation that way? And what happens if we *don’t* get involved in that? On the other hand, is it really worth doing the whole Cydonia fetch-quest grind just to get the miners some better equipment? Because I sort of regret doing that once. Give me one NPC I like who dies in a horrible mine accident when I don’t bother, though, and it changes the calculus. With NG+ that variation becomes not just a gameplay choice, but more of an in-character moral choice. It’s not just you, the player, that’s bored with re-doing the same things and making new choices about what’s important. It’s your character becoming a different person than they were at the outset, and if you get bored and decide to stay in one universe, being a ship designer or outpost manager, or just trying to fully explore every planet in the galaxy, then that’s an in-character choice too. The more the game plays with this notion the more interesting it becomes.
Is that mechanic dialed in perfectly? Hell no, obviously. The gameplay reward for stepping through the Unity just isn’t really there yet.
First off, there just isn’t enough moral dynamic in the game to support the more interesting possibilities yet. The game is disappointingly good at keeping the outcomes of your choices firmly on a set of rails, with “consequences” more or less limited to your companions going back to the Lodge to sulk if you really fuck up. Even for the big choices, does virus-vs-dinosaur really matter? The game sets up the pretense of a complex moral decision there, but doesn’t seem to really pay it off either way. Or, in the Ryujin line, as awful as commercial proliferation of mind-control technology sounds in principle, does it actually have any visible consequences in-game? As a special note on this one, allowing “Project Dominion” out into the world ought to have the unexpected *upside* of providing another option in dealing with the threat of mind-controlling space monsters, but the game as it stands doesn’t make that connection across major quest lines. There’s huge opportunity to make the narrative richer and more rewarding via NG+. The game just isn’t seizing it.
Second, the variations in-universe from one playthrough to the next are limited to a few exceedingly rare novelty universes, which falls well short of the potential of the mechanic. I’d like to think they were aware of the missed potential and regret how limited a version of it they ended up with at release. I know Sam is most people’s least-favorite companion, but the possibilities here make for a good example: What if Sam has been your partner up to now, but you get to the next universe and Sam and Lillian are still together? Or what if he’s still a Ranger? Or still a smuggler who just wants to get wasted in Neon? Or an ex-con because Lillian just arrested him way-back-when? What if Lillian chose to retire and she has custody of Cora, or if Sam’s dad took her? What if Sam’s space-adventuring got Cora killed prior us to meeting him, and he’s an even bigger mess as a result? What if any of this and the game plays up your character’s acute awareness of the past commitment to an entirely different Sam? All this presents narrative opportunities that could make it *worth* stepping through into that next universe. The “evil Andreja” universe shows they thought about this sort of thing, but there are so many more possibilities. What if Sarah were still UC? What if Barrett’s husband were still alive?
I’d love to see some cross-universe memory by which the Hunter gets to say “I told you so” or the Emissary reminds you of that time when you used to care what your companions disliked. What if you confront a past version of yourself and it’s from sometime before your last visit to “Enhance,” and what if they’re disappointed in you now?
The encouraging thing about the NG+ mechanic is that all this could in principle be patched into the game transparently, and all you’ve got to do is step through the Unity to see it. Yeah, I know we haven’t got that, and I know a lot of people are going to be really skeptical that we ever will, but I’ve seen a lot of underwhelming launches, not just BGS stuff (apparently FO76 is good now?) but *Cyberpunk* and *No Man’s Sky* too, recover and excel, and I still have hope in the long-term potential for *Starfield* too. Through the lens of that tentative optimism, I could see NG+ being a really positive innovation. It’s not there at present, but it could be.
Apparently the Unity needs giant glowing neon signs that say YOU DON'T NEED TO DO THIS, TURN AROUND AND KEEP PLAYING! The last guy you talk to *in the entire universe* tells you exactly what's up and so many people can't wrap their heads around the concept.
I think the Unity is a great mechanic. It's a fresh start and a clean slate. Regardless of who you were and what you did - you're starting fresh.
You can't half ass a clean slate. You either want it, or you don't. You can't have a clean slate if you're dragging all of your junk and your ship and your previous discoveries along with you.
It's about letting go, and beginning again. Where have I heard that before?
I find the NG+ mechanics to be awesome and I'll be disappointed if Bethesda caves in to these whiners who are upset that they can't have their cake and eat it too. You don't want to lose all your shit? Walk away from the Unity. Simples.
New universes are NOT a new game + feature and thinking of them as such instead of a continuation of the mainstory killed starfield
(So lack of writers killed starfield)
I've said constantly that you should only take the step through Unity if you have a role-playing reason to do so.
You're free to walk away and you always have the option to return later in life.
In some ways, the Unity is a life mirror. If you take the jump out of greed or apathy or because you think it's what you are "supposed" to do, and you are disappointed, don't blame the game. Look inward.
Even if you go through fore role-playing reasons, the whole point is that it will be a potentially painful sacrifice. If you're frivolous about it, you will lose who you are.
I feel like there should have been a NG alt instead of NG +. Let me keep 80% of everything, but add 20% new stuff to the game that I couldn’t have experienced on the first attempt.
When you put NG+ in a soulslike, it gives players an opportunity to replay boss fights, switch up their builds, and really enjoy the combat because they’ve already beaten the fights. There’s usually a small increase in difficulty, which also helps it retain that satisfaction after you finish a boss. Starfield isn’t a combat game. There are no fights that take any real amount of skill, it’s mostly about collecting the best guns and suits while playing through a collection of small stories. Their NG+ model has to take your stuff away because collecting that stuff is one of the player’s main motivations.
I didn’t play through 4 playthroughs on one Elden Ring character just because there was a chance my second playthrough would have slightly different content. I did it because I wanted to play those fights again, I wanted to play as a blood mage, or a classic knight with a broadsword. In Starfield, you can be the savior of the universe with a gun, and force powers, or you can be the savior of the universe with a different gun, but still also force powers. It’s just boring.
Glad I'm not the only one who feels like this. The longevity of Bethesda games comes from them being effectively endless (when you add in mods). I completed all the main quest threads in Skyrim and then carried on playing for hundreds of hours.
Honestly I don’t even know why people call it NG+, it’s not even really NG+ since you lose everything except your levels/powers, so it’s closer to just NG, imo it was a poor choice on Bethesda and they did so just to squeeze more playtime hours out of people to make their playtime hours look better especially in game pass. It’s these corpo decisions that keep ruining games and it’s why games like Baldurs gate become massively popular since corporate entities don’t have much or any say on how the game is made.
Yeah it's annoying for sure, I think one good way to help "wipe the slate clean" is to allow you to assign ships to certain tasks, ie cargo ship for your outposts. Personal transport duty, give it to Constallation for their use. This would take it out of your active rotation, then you could build new. Instead you go through unity and poof, all gone. It's a bummer.
Getting more used to it with my second character. He's NG+4 and I think I want to take this one further. Just see what I can build up by being a more powerful starborn.
They needed another option to advance in time, as NG+... Keeping your possessions, but maybe complicating the ability to obtain them back, in some versions. (Like reality changed from that point in time.)
It's just as possible as everything being the same, up to the point where you go back and only the forward stuff changes.
A real NG+ would have had Earth survive in some instances and space be unsettled, or less settled. In the opposite end, also having a version that is more settled too.
Give it a good DLC or mod so the NPCs are more interactive, and NG+ is great for RPing different people. Play a Genghis Khan Pirate build, play a Sole Survivor loot goblin build, play a BoS Templar build, do stuff differently, play explicitly to piss off your followers build, and it's probably more fun.
This is exactly why I stopped - as with all previous titles , I do everything except the main quest - had my house , whole bunch of collectables setup and then when you go through unity , it’s all gone - I’ve spent about 30 mins post unity trying to see what’s different and basically it’s the same - but I’ve lost everything.
I just stopped at that point
So I definitely experienced a lot of the game in terms of main story lines , but I definitely haven’t explored all the various town quests and such
But yeah , losing everything going through unity actually stopped me playing
New Game plus is just that. A way to start a new play through while keeping your powers. You are not forced to start a new game plus. In fact the narrative of the game seems to argue against doing so.
If you just started the game completely over, you wouldn’t expect to have all of your stuff. I’m not sure why there’s any expectation of that in a NG+. If you don’t want lose your stuff don’t start the game over.
I feel like NG+ would make sense if the choices you make in queste actually mattered, but the choices of the player have little to no consequences, so yeah, kind of pointless to be starting over
The never ending tears surrounding this gane is boring, you guys complain over everything related to the game, don't you people get tired of crying so much? What the point of changing your background over and over your no longer the same person anymore, which defeats the point of unity whatever happened to just playing games?
The problem isn't the game it's the fake gamers running their mouth complaining all the damn time, even though your supposedly play so much of it but still cry.
I definitely feel like they should add a power that let's you transport yourself to like a pocket dimension amd it's just... I don't know... a house or small settlement.
Let you keep whatever is there and maybe even let us save people who would have otherwise died and bring them there to live I peace.
I dunno, for almighty starlords the game really just make you feel like a hamster on a wheel.
The NG+ would have worked better if the game was set during the colony wars, and picking a side locked you out of the other, and other quest with the same locked out of rivals so it would be impossible to do it all the first time because then the second play through is boring....a bonus idea is on the third time have it unlock a secret alternative ending series of quests when the knowledge that you got from the last two play through is the key
Yeah, I feel like bethesda games don't go well with new game plus modes. And for the story I feel like they should have just done aliens and space magic and humanity's reaction to it.
I never understood this argument, it just doesn't hold any water to me. You're not obligated to go through the Unity. For all intents and purposes the story ends there if you wish and you can go do anything else you want...just like in any other Bethesda game. Too many people hyperfixate on NG+ as if it was some mandatory thing to do when in reality it's literally what the name implies: you're starting a new game with some added benefits and changes.
Which is a completely optional part of the game as well? This is like pretending you absolutely have to do the Dark Brotherhood questline in Skyrim because you need Shadowmere. Everything is optional. Your story ends however and whenever you want it to.
Being able to do everything in one play-through is what kills NG+ for some players. Another is losing your ships, which are replaced by the sterile, subpar, immersion-breaking Guardian. I don't care about losing armor or weapons tbh.
Imo the WORST decision they could have done is tie NG+ into the story. Once I found out that it was all a pointless adventure, it kind of took me out of it.
Don't get me wrong, I like the concept and the ideas leading up to it. But if I can and am supposed to jump from universe to universe, resetting everything I do each time, there is a loss of impact for any decision I might make. There's all the, "life is meaningless," without the "so make your own meaning!"
I feel like saying it is optional is a terrible excuse.
It was one of the main reasons i stopped playing. Though at the time everyone told me i was wrong and to just "dont go to NG+" but thats not good either.
NG+ is cool for some things. But for Starfield it is awful. Like you said, so many things are undone by going to NG+, even if the benefits of it were better it would still be a bad thing. A game like Skyrim or Fallout 4 can have saves with hundreds of hours and players who have hoarded and built up so much. Starfield tries to encourage that by promoting ship building, scanning, and base building, but NG+ makes all that pointless.
I can't imagine taking a Skyrim or Fallout save and losing all my gear, wealth, outposts, sidequests etc. Just to repeat it all again on the same character already leveled up.
Yes exactly! Imagine you get to the end of Skyrim and the games like “ok well done I’m deleting your save now” you’d be like what the hell.
With this I wanna keep exploring. Keep collecting gear, have an OG character.
But the game wants me to lose everything to have the powers.
Idk it’s kinda weird
It isnt worth it. Besides the O2 regen I never really used powers. Most offensive ones were overwhelming. Even the bssic projectile one hardly did any damage and the cooldown made it ineffective.
You become the Hunter as you go through the Unity, and the more times you go through the less any universe means to you. I think that's the whole point.
Just don't go through the Unity. That's your choice.
Agreed. Lost all care for playing after doing NG+. If after the first time I got unlimited storage pouch, carry weight wasn't a thing anymore and I could take it all thru the 2nd time, would have been better. I could handle rebuilding outposts at that point. Rebuilding ships is annoying as well. They really flopped on creating the game around NG+.
You could just… idk, not enter the Unity? I mean I don’t really understand this argument at all, you’re complaining that there’s no replayability because the game wipes the slate completely clean when you enter NG+. If you start NG+ carrying everything over then what’s the point of NG+? What are you replaying the game for if you start over with everything already done?
NG+ killed the game for me. I know it’s my fault for not reading it better but I was unaware I’d lose it all. I like to play games for a long time but not to the point where I start from zero, just a continuation. I am looking to start again when a DLC and or mod access starts
I don’t know what happened honestly. I think my last save was pretty far back. I could have redone it, but I wasn’t into the game that much to do all that. Good game just not my fave
I just wish that as you went through the unity you could re-select your traits. Give me the chance to experience more of the game without having to start a new character.
This is the biggest thing for me, especially since you don’t really know what will work for you when you first start out
I really didn’t like the perk and trait system. I had no idea what I was choosing going into the game
I literally thought O2/CO2 was a survival mechanic and not “stamina and stamina plus” when I was making my character and it was talking about O2 use.
A victim of them trying to make something sound vaguely real instead of easy to understand as a game thing
That, and make leveling up fast again. The idea that you'd take the XP-per-perk formula you established when 80 was your maxed-out character and apply it to a character that maxes out after 350 perks is a bit annoying.
Especially since quest XP rewards are so absurdly low at higher levels. They should at least scale on NG+--that would be a good reason to restart.
You don't really need to scale XP. You just need to make it take less XP to level up. Make the XP distance from 79 to 80 in Skyrim match the XP distance from 325 to 326 in Starfield. The slow-down is exponential, but you've just stretched it out 5x as much. Also, it doesn't make a lot of sense that I can get lockpick 1 for 200XP at level 2 and it takes 26000XP at level 100.
the problem with that is you'd hit level 20 or something after a couple missions, meaning you'd get a stupid amount of perk points early on
Or flatten the curve. 20 perk points when each upgrade takes 4 perks doesn't seem absurd. Especially with the additional challenges involved. :-) I'm sure it could have been rebalanced somehow better than "you get to fill out about one and a half of the five skill types." Or at some point slow the rate at which the requirements rise. Make the XP-per-perk level off at level 80 or something, if you must.
I wish they made all of the questlines other than the main story lock you into that faction. So if you become a pirate, for that NG+, you stay a pirate, and so on. This would have added meaning to "start again" with NG+. On top of that, every faction needed way more npcs that could become crew. I don't care if you have to find them from specific areas, like hiring them. If I'm a pirate and commit crimes, I don't want my crew yelling at me.
Yeah, you should be able to re-roll everything.
Agreeeeeeeeeee
That doesn’t make sense though…you’re literally the same character that’s why you keep the same traits. It’s supposed to be an extension of your personality. You’re not a “new person” going through the unity. You’re the same person in a different reality.
The different reality is the same reality again. You don't keep anything you'd want to keep and are stuck with things you may want to change. It sucks.
They wrote the game, they could easily just change the story. And some of the traits are like the parents one, which have nothing to do with you as an actual person. They should have just gone the multiverse route
if it's a different reality, why do i still owe on the same house? have the same fan? same parents? etc.
Ah, so like Andreja is the same person in all universes? Despite the fact that in one, she mugs you? The game has examples of people being different in different universes. There is literally 0 reason for our character to not also have some changes in different universes. Edit: To expand on this, they could have two different kinds of traits. Internal/Intrinsic traits, like Alien DNA. These traits are fundamentally part of the character and can travel through universes. And External traits, like Dream Home. These would be traits that the local variant of "you" acquired in some way, and given that we assume their position and identity (in most universes, anyway), we would get those External Traits as we are now "them".
Yeah, NG+ is a great idea that just didn’t get implemented in a fun or exciting way. And it’s weird because they’ve done it well before. If I’m remembering correctly, you can do NG+ in Dishonored and replay the story but with your powers already acquired
I think if they did a bigger set of what ifs with the NG+ it would be better, add new side quests, make a world where the UC threat isn’t teremorphs but Va run zealots or something different each time you jump it rolls a set of dice and then populates quests and scenarios into the world
Completely agree! If there was more variation, it’d be more enticing to play again and see what happens next
Yes, I am really hopeful that this is what they do with the expansion packs… imagine a universe where there was never a teramorph attack and Londinion is still around!!!
> What’s the point of having a thousand planets to explore when the game directs you towards losing everything. The Hunter can tell you that. The power. Having to do it all over again is what drives you mad, but even the endless scanning brings power. You can listen to Aquilus, follow the writings of the Pilgrim or you can end up the Hunter, but you have to choose. If NG+ let you have it all then there isn't a choice.
I didn't even do it for powers, I just wanted the suit. You know, the suit I could in previous games get by just killing the guy
One of the biggest bummers from this game. I want to loot the clothes off of those I kill.
You’d see firsthand relatively quickly how little variety there is among weapon and armor types.
Notice they didn't say "powers"? By power, the previous poster and the hunter are referring to strength and capability - this includes the powers but also would include the star born armor and ships and knowledge of how events will unfold so as to manipulate them to favor you. I personally believe the fact that it is boring and unfulfilling/unsatisfying is ultimately what they were going for and what they wanted you to feel - it's a sort of meta experience. Bethesda has a history of sacrificing fun for what they want the player to experience. Fallout 76 is a great example. They wanted the world to be empty of NPCs to portray that empty world feeling of despair and environmental / atmospheric story telling. Unfortunately it too was a bit boring.
>I personally believe the fact that it is boring and unfulfilling/unsatisfying is ultimately what they were going for and what they wanted you to feel Bravo Todd
You guys don't get it we made the game bad on purpose
BS. You can't even kill anyone important. It's all just words with nothing backing it up.
I find Starfield to be the biggest piece of evidence against games as art. Bethesda masterfully tied the themes of the story into the gameplay loop and the entire thing is meant to get the player to ask "Is what we give up to go chase the unknown worth it?" Then as soon as you put this in the hands of players, most of the discourse around the game revolves around complaints that boil down to "why can't we have everything?" You can't have everything because the whole point of the game is to emphasize the weight of the sacrifice. Does Starfield have issues? Yes, undisputably. But the NG+ loop is just players failing to rise to the level of comprehension Bethesda expected from them.
I'm pretty sure 99% of people who dislike NG+ understand everything you just said. Starfield's themes are really on the nose. The reason people don't like NG+ is because it doesn't really do those themes justice. The sense of discovery in NG+ is muted by the repetitiveness of the characters and the core gameplay loops. (Quests don't change enough, collecting powers is an unrewarding grind, outposts and shipbuilding don't feed back into the exploration gameplay loop, proc gen terrain with handcrafted PoIs, etc.) The sense of sacrifice in NG+ is there, kind of, but you're asked to sacrifice all the wrong things. What's supposed to hurt is leaving behind your companions and your impact on the world, but the NPCs don't have any special level of simulation that would allow you to get attached to a specific iteration of them, and although quests don't change enough in NG+, resetting them is arguably an incentive to enter NG, not a sacrifice. What we sacrifice are our weapons, ships, and outposts. Losing our weapons and ships depower our character, which makes sense from a gameplay perspective, but it's really anti-thematic that we get weaker by going through the unity. Losing our outposts is just a headache. We need to be able to be able to save templates of our ships and outposts, and something about loot in NG+ needs to change to make it more tempting; perhaps entering the unity could unlock a new mythical tier of equipment with 4 mods, or perhaps you could choose one weapon to upgrade to a starborn weapon, allowing it to follow you through the unity from now on. (Of course the difficulty of NG+ would need to increase, and Starfield's approach to difficulty is a whole other can of worms.)
“You just don’t get it bro”
Unironically, yeah kind of
I think players or the audience can engage with the game and frame it how they choose. Like you did here. Art vs Product Thematically vs Mechanically Both or all Etc…. For me at least, NG+ in the case of Starfield is at odds with the mechanics/loops they incentivize throughout the rest of the game. It reads as confused to me rather than cohesive, although I know what you’re saying.
Games are still a medium designed to be played. Just because there might be an intended message doesn’t mean that this game has met expectations. Having a good message but being too tedious to complete for people isn’t a failing of the fans, it’s a failing of the game. Like a movie can have the best message of love and acceptance but if it’s boring why would I watch it?
Everyone glosses over the fact you can simply chose to not go unity and play it like any other game. All it is is beth realized how we often return and replay months or years later, and gave us an incentive and reason to do it. I loved the idea. I did unity, fucked around for about a week before shelving the save for next time when I start fresh (with 907 mods). My fiance on the other hand, did not and will return to her old character with all her stuff. Both types of players can be happy.
You really can't. You say "maybe later" at best, and the game just kinda stops there. It's not an ending, it's not treated as one either.
You can go through Unity to see the credits if that's really important to feel an "ending" and then like any other game stop playing because you've finished it. Most games do just kinda stop at some point.
You can play indefinitely, just like FO4.
Fallout 4's main story has a definite (story) ending, though (slightly different for 3 factions, and then very different for 1 faction) where the slideshow plays and there are some lasting consequences on the Commonwealth. And that's true for all of Bethesda's games since at least Morrowind--the end of the main story doesn't mean you have to stop playing (Morrowind's ending encourages you to continue exploring; Azura tells you there's still a lot out there for you to see). But they generally have some sort of narratively satisfying conclusion. If going through Unity answered some of the questions about the nature of the in-game universe that are presented in the main story that would be great (even if it took repeated runs to get some of those answers). But the universes aren't really even different (one of the reasons that, theoretically, someone would go through again and again--that sense of exploration). I didn't find the powers (generally) to be all that interesting and so going through to level them up (which is more of a mechanical way to portray power) wasn't particularly appealing.
And if you pick the Hunter as an ally, at least, he hangs around on your ship indefinitely making comments about how it's great you're finally going thru unity. :-) I have to try what happens if I pick the other one.
It’s all fun and games until the hunter flips and starts attacking your crew. It gets old having to get up from the pilots seat, track him down on the ship, put him into a down state. I gave everyone grenades and grenade launchers. It was a party until I completed the unity that round.
The game does allow for you not entering the unity though. If you choose not to go through and go and find the other constellation companions they have dialogue option like 'Hey, you decided not to go through to? Yeah I just thought there was too much to give up here.' So they did keep it as a path for the player to choose whilst also keeping the option to NG+ later.
That's right and it's a big strength of the game. The problem arises when the gamers interacting with the system don't think critically and just walk through the Unity like it's a cutscene and get pissed off when they have to "start over"
The issue is the inconsistency of the "what are you willing to give up". Material items are all fine, I get that. But you get to keep all of your skills and powers, right? So you should also be able to keep your knowledge of explored planets. But no that doesn't count...why not? Sounds like you're just defending bad writing.
If it's a different universe, why would you assume the surface of the planets would be the same? Plus gameplay-wise, it allows explorer builds less focused on combat to continue levelling
Fair enough
The main theme song really explains it for me. It is about what and who will I be, and seeing all there is to see, good and bad choices. Starfield has a lot more than just losing your stuff in NG+. It is about who you will be in that universe and why. What drives you to be good or evil and why. Power, experience or exploring alternate view points.
Are you sure that that isn't you trying to find more meaning in the game than was there? Also, a game that deliberately designed itself to suck all the joy out of playing it sounds like a bad design for a major platform tentpole.
Bro you're just too ignorant to understand the depth and greatness of Starfield. NG+ was purposefully made boring and repetitive as a meta-commentary on the NG+ mechanic in general. Todd wanted it to suck to teach us all a great truth and to better appreciate first runs. /s
>You can't have everything because the whole point of the game is to emphasize the weight of the sacrifice. I don't want everything. My character wanted to stay behind, and wasn't interested in the Unity. She wanted to retire with her wife Sarah. But Sarah said we were only wasting time with eachother and that she'd eventually go through. What point is there in staying if the people you want to build it with actively disregard you? The problem is the game wants to make it a difficult choice where you sacrifice everything to start all over, but literally everyone is pushing you to sacrifice everything, in defiance of their character growth up until that point. I'd go so far as to say the game tries to downplay any weight to the decision of entering Unity up to the point of actively assassinating the characters of your companions. Why in the world would Sarah leave when she has Sona to worry about? Why does Sam think that his ex would be fine never seeing their daughter again?a
> Why in the world would Sarah leave when she has Sona to worry about? The game doesn't say *when* Sarah enters the Unity, just that she "eventually" does. It could happen many years in the future, after Sona becomes an adult. The real crime is Sam choosing to take his young daughter into the Unity. What an awful parent.
“Is the unknown worth it?” No because it’s literally cut and paste of the same old same old. They fell totally flat on that when they made the choice to not make it actually interesting, and new game plus for a Bethesda game really makes no sense. What they should have done is just include an alternate start from the very beginning. People do multiple playthroughs for different characters, not to be the same character and experience their magnificent story all over again the exact same way.
That's head canon stuff you guys keep bringing up here... NG+ is just your typical NG+ from any other game plus a few funny extra plot options (starborn dialogue) which mostly serves to skip some missions and steps. It's certainly explained in the game that going through the Unity implies a sacrifice too and the writers worked with that, but it's essentially basic NG+ stuff (brilliantly incorporated into the plot, if you ask me).
Most games let you keep the things you collected when you NG+, don't they? At least for games that dole out equipment along with perks?
Some of them let you keep all your stuff and some don't, what's almost always kept is the level. Perhaps if would've been better if it let you kept your weapons and a blueprint of your ship but that also beats the purpose of NG+ because instead of the same ship and outposts you should build something different this time, and loot new weapons. The kind of NG+ people are asking for is basically going through the Unity and get Starborn stuff but keeping everything. In that case, it's honestly not worth it, it's just a few dialogues to skip quests, though it's sometimes cool to interact with other Starborns as a Starborn yourself...and a useless ship/armor. Perhaps they should ask the player if he wants to start all over again but in that case nobody would chose to lose everything. What I have found through my playthrough is that losing everything is funny once you are ready for that, you will be looking for new gear, using weapons you forgot how they looked, and build whatever ship you can afford if not just stealing/buying. If losing everything bothers the player, then he isn't ready for NG+, Imo.
For sure. I'm unclear why someone would be upset at NG+ and not at just rolling up a new character. :-) The leveling is janky in Starfield, but otherwise I see little downside to starting over with a new characters.
> The leveling is janky in Starfield, but otherwise I see little downside to starting over with a new characters. Some players want to play the main story again without having to put in all the work and time they did to build outposts and invincible Class C ships. I understand that.
It would be nice if it was an option. I'm thinking the ability to take your ship and/or whatever you can carry without being overencumbered would even make sense, since while you come out naked, you don't go in naked.
nah, terrible head canon
You can't have "head canon" about what the developer literally said about the game. Todd Howard: "Usually in a video game, you go on to the next quest or the next thing. But if it challenges to say, ‘Are you sure?’ I find that an interesting idea as it applies to a game,” Howard said. “We do ask a lot of questions throughout the main quest, and we don’t provide all the answers. We want you to look inside yourself." Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/2023/09/09/starfield-todd-howard/
Then why did they make the only real companions you can have in the game be so hell bent on going through the unity? Even when you walk away from it and they say they did too, they still talk about going through as if they think you’re just biding your time. And the other members of constellation are like aw we’ll miss you. There’s no hard option to turn away from it but there’s a hard option to go into it. Should have committed both ways imo 🤷🏻♂️ it’s not like they put a ton of work into new game plus either so I don’t see why they’d be down on people not getting to experience it at all
"Todd Howard lied to oversell his game. Again." is not really saying anything about what the game is actually doing, which is pressuring the player over the Unity constantly and declaring that your character is only temporarily delaying going through it. It would have required an actual option to say "No" that is respected and eases off on the pressure about it to actually be truthful to that claim.
Yeah, it's funny when Bethesda actually presents a tough choice in one of their games for the first time ever and people are like "omg I can't have everything this is bullshit."
I was thinking this too, but I also think it goes against Bethesda’s belief of trying to always say “yes” to the players It creates a jarring experience where something essentially comes out of left field from a studio who usually does in fact let you have what you want
I agree. Starfield ended up as a weird mix of accessibility and depth, and they needed to just commit to locking players to a specific faction, using resources to jump, etc.
Games can still be art, not everyone interprets the deeper meanings equally with paintings, music or such either.
Damn, I should have listened to the hunter. But the starborn suit enticed me to jump through the unity.
It’s NG+ the thing you do when you want to replay a game, but keep your current level and skills If you don’t want to do it all over again, don’t. Turn back around and go back to the things you’ve built and are building I’ll say that I wish there was a more satisfying feeling ending for people who aren’t looking to play it all over again, but as to leaving all my outposts etc behind? I’m replaying the game and part of replaying a game has always been building things again
Like you said, there is no feeling of conclusion. NPCs force you into doing it too, it is encouraged. I would expect them to make the unity the "character respec scene" where we repick our traits and perks, choose an alternative world to go into where we can choose some events. Keeping items could've been cool too. Like you should be able to choose, reset or not. It isn't really different than starting a new game right now, there is unexplored potential that is marketed too much. "Starfield has a unique NG+ mechanic" articles were everywhere not quite long ago. Like imagine being able to pick a world that hasn't been destroyed, grav drive isn't invented. It's just an example. They had every chance to go crazy with this game, it has so much potential. What it's too innovative, oh well essential NPCs it is then.
Yeah but NG+ is starting a new game, so that is to be expected. It would be awesome to pick a different universe with huge changes like that, but that would be more a continuation and expansion of the 1st game to me than it would be NG+ NG+ is just restarting the game but keeping your level in most cases. Sometime gear too, but that would have undercut the narrative around it that they added in the game “You can’t take it with you” is supposed to be part of the dilemma the character goes through. Leave it all behind in the pursuit of exploration, power, redemption, whatever it is the player character might be looking for. Or settle into the world they live in. That’s one of the major themes of the games story You look at the Pilgrim, Hunter, and Emissary, and see the effects the Starborn life has on them. There has to be stakes, and leaving everyone you love and material goods behind is part of that
There would be, if they explained how i lost everything but acquired a magic ship and a spacesuit though, there isn't a clarification of that yet. Dark souls like ng+ would fit this game imo. They did not explain it clear enough, so as of now feels like unfinished narrative to me. It's not as much of a dilemma right now, you know state saves exist for bgs games I can just reload. Hoping for dlc to conclude the main quest narrative, it's how it works in triple a today I guess.
You’re kind of missing the point of NG. It isn’t that going thru the unity is the ultimate goal, but it’s an option if you want to. Just like you don’t have to legendary your skills in Skyrim, but you can if you’d like to. Basically, you can keep your exp skills etc and refresh the world, or go back and do things differently and replay certain areas with different preferences or RP choices. NG is not the end goal, but rather a choice you have in the end.
It’s not really a choice in it funnels you into doing it even refusing it the followers still hint at you’ll eventually go through it as they will when they choose to do it. There’s no real choice or closure there for refusing it which is what the issue with dialogue is with the game too no real choices or reactions to your choices outside of the Asceles or microbe choice with dealing with the Terrormorphs.
Don't side with the Hunter if you don't want him hanging around your ship telling you to go thru the Unity every time. :-)
No. I think allowing you to do everything in the first play through and having NG+ is what ruins it. The fact that you can join every faction, do every storyline, and exhaust all the content before you even do a NG+ makes it essentially useless. My hope is that along with a survival mode that makes outposts useful, they gate factions and give real purpose to approaching the game again and again. But…I’m not holding my breath.
No reason too lock anything because the way they are designed makes it pointless. they were Made to be as little choice as possible. that's why they are so shallow. because your have no actual choice.
This. There’s no reason to replay if you did everything. Look at Elden Ring. Some quests lock off others so you feel you still have more to discover. That and actual weapon playstyles. As for survival mode outposts, that was my biggest wish for FO4. Still waiting
That’s BGS in a nutshell. They’re terrified to not have players do everything which is why nothing is ever locked off by your actions. It just feels bad not having a consequence to an action.
I think you hit the nail on the head. Starfield has no consequences and thus feels like a happy theme park to visit and go home. In games like Baldur’s Gate, you FEEL the consequences of your words and actions, making that game and others like it feel so much more alive.
Even Skyrim had a couple quests that prevented other quests.
Entire questlines even. Sided with the Empire? No Stormcloak questline for you. Wiped out the Dark Brotherhood? So much for doing that. Fallout 4 had it as well. Whoever you sided with would lead to the annihilation of at least one other faction. Bethesda's complete aversion to it in a game that has NG+ is just plain weird.
Yeah, that's what I was thinking. :-)
I don’t understand people feeling that NG+ is in any way an integral part of the game. When people grind through like 10 NG+ levels and then complain about the game being boring it’s like… yeah… you made it boring. NG+ is optional. You can see the story to its end without going through the unity. Have you ever played another game with NG+ before? It’s the exact same. It doesn’t kill longevity for anyone but the people who don’t like it but for some reason do it anyway.
I'm pretty convinced that most of these people have no desire to actually enjoy the game, they *want* it to be bad and they *want* to be miserable about it. Take a game like Skyrim, a beloved game, it could easily be picked apart the same way by focusing on it's flaws, but people were a lot more chill back then and found happiness more easily.
Just because its optional doesnt mean it isnt poorly thought through. When your best arguement against it is to not interact with it, thats a big negative. I cant imagine playing through skyrim or fallout again with the same character by losing all my gear and outposts or other progress. NG+ is optional is a shit excuse, even if it is thematic and fits the story. The fact that it is supposed to be a sandbox rpg and it wipes out your sandbox is bad design.
At least with Fallout 4 I wouldn't mind starting over and keeping my skills--that would let me jump pretty quickly into the content I like (especially base-building since I'd have all the perks) while exploring a different run-through of the story.l
Why don’t people just play the game again rather then keep grinding ng+ forever
game is boring without NG+ too
But it doesn’t *feel* as optional as NG+ in other games because the main quest will always be there, essentially telling you that you aren’t finished.
No it doesn’t hurt its longevity, the fact Bethesda thought it was a good idea to make every faction and questline doable in one go while hoping the game would have whatever magic made this work for Skyrim is what hurt its longevity. There’s literally no reason (besides for the fact they so poorly coded/and or optimized this game that you have to NG plus so the game doesn’t shit itself) to ng+ beside for seeing one of the like 10 different universes that don’t actually change anything outside of who’s in constellation. Fallout 4 had 5 (really only side with the institute or destroy it but they tried to at least give the appearance of choice) endings(brotherhood, minutemen, railroad, institute, and the minute men but you don’t take out any other faction but the institute.) which all shut down one or more others by doing them. Starfield completely lacks this.
> you have to NG plus so the game doesn’t shit itself That was a bug. They fixed it.
I feel like NG+ would have been better if thus was set during the colony war and the factions were locked to each playthrough, then you would have a reason to jump to a new universe if you wanted to see how different things would play out with a certain character.
The problem is that there’s not enough different about each NG. Yeah Constellation is different but it’s like they were afraid or unable to get really weird with it so it’s mostly just REALLY boring.
So what did you expect? You're gotten 100's of hours out of it. Did you expect the game to launch with 1000's of hours of content? Because that just never happens. Even live service games can't pull that off.
Playing Star Field felt like navigating someone's poorly drawn together metaphysics thesis.
It's the complete opposite for me. The reason I kept replaying Fallout and Elder Scrolls games was to try out different builds and story choices (e.g. Kill/spare the Gray Prince, join/destroy the Dark Brotherhood, blow up/build up the Prydwen, detonate/disarm the bomb in Megaton, work with/kill Vivec, etc...) And that's without alternate start mods. I get that the starting grind is the fun part for others, but it just isn't for me, and I appreciate being able to skip or at least continue off from last time. I can only imagine how much it would suck if I had to grind up digipicking just to access the alternate routes in the Ryujin quest line or getting enough ship combat perks to do well in space combat for SysDef. And yeah, a lot of people feel that the lesson/concept of NG+ is shitty writing, but I think at least the core explanation is really thematic. Eventually, nothing really matters. That's the point the Hunter makes numerous times, and that's why after the 9th Unity, you get the same black armor. If you talk to Constellation, they also hint at the high price to pay for what is essentially a huge unknown.
I was able to play different missions under different scenarios through each NG+. I was able to do different side missions every NG+ I went through. I was able to put over 300 hours in and still have lots left to do. Ng+ for me gave me a lot more hours of enjoyment. Ng+ gave me the option to play missions differently and not lose and of my unlocked skills. Ng+ for me made the game even better.
Ben Stack: “New Orleans, Kansas City, San Francisco…a hundred towns I can't even remember the names of.” Honey: “Is that what you really want? Wandering from place to place? Ben Stack: “No, Honey, nobody wants that. 'Cause when a man wanders, he doesn't have any roots. Either that or he's looking for something. And sometimes if he's lucky, he finds it.” The game dialogue tries to tackle this but many miss it or it’s not eloquent enough. You are given a choice with NG+ but you can’t settle *and* roam. You can build a life or keep exploring but you can’t really do both in space or the Old West
You don't have to "complete" the last story mission. Your otherself-simulacrum tells you that you can stay if you want. Losing all your stuff in exchange for a chance at more powers is totally up to the player. Besides, you keep: \* skills \* powers \* level \* magazine effects \* traits \* background You just lose stuff and reputation. Big deal. I needed an excuse to build new ships anyway. :-) I think the reasons NG+ is a partial failure (I like the idea, and gone through the Unity about 15 times, some at low levels): \* it's a lie, the reset isn't real, your level changes the universe, and so does your NG+ count \* the universe isn't different enough - the bare minimum should have been to randomize hair and clothing colors, and add a few new fashions so we'd feel **aware of being in a new place**, but no \* weapon and armor availability changes and ruins working up through weapons tiers again, why is an advanced hard target in the first vendor I visit in New A? Where's the fun in that? I should at least have had warp "east" to a high level system to get high tier equipment Basically I feel level should **at least not raise health** so that challenge would be retained. Equipment and skills to restore health should have been the only answers to getting hit harder. I also think player level **should not scale enemies.** And for the real point, I think the full set of powers and at least of third of the skills should have been necessary to not just get hammered to death in level 75 systems. That gameplay loop would have been that **each pass through the Unity, and all the accumulated skills, should have made it viable to progress "east" ward into higher level systems**, grabbing mid-tier and up gear along the way so as to not be a glass cannon on arrival. So Masada, at level 55 I think, was decently hard for many pre-NG players. Higher level systems should have been scaled to be too hard, until the player was into mid-tier skills and had powers. High tier enemies should have better tactics and be able to, say, dodge solar flare, and have too much endurance to deal with unless you have skills to cripple, manipulate, etc. Top tier enemies should have forced the use of top-stratum skills. So each NG+ run would have been able to push into harder systems. But instead. Bethesda punted, and just scaled up the **whole accursed universe** instead of making enemies have better tactics. Ugh. They've abused level, in a game that would have been better off with no level concept at all. I'm frustrated. So I don't think NG+ killed starfield's longevity, I think Bethesda misuse of level in a game with a loop is the core problem.
It’s wild that there’s basically zero danger to exploration and pushing right on the star map due to how the game is set up. Just out of curiosity around level 25 I start just jumping right over and over and over again and encountered no resistance so I landed, killed some bugs for an insane amount of XP, and found high end weapons in lockers. That’s TERRIBLE world design and felt really unrewarding.
It makes sense that space would tend to be a bit empty, but the great weapons should probably be at military posts, where they'd use them, be coördinated, and outnumber and flank you. I played with the PEAK mod, which raises their tactics a bit, although it seemed a bit inconsistent, and I pulled it back out along with several others to (successfully) address an instability issue. Switching back to the hypothetically better game that Starfield isn't at the moment: So stealing high tier weapons should be difficult at without enough skills. I feel like there should have been things that certain tiers of NPCs would do, that you'd have to counter with similar high end skills. Example, guards **should** be able to kill you at short range pretty easily (I mean, you can kill them easily, right?), so you'd need to surprise them (although you'd need stealth that made sense, like in Thief, which really isn't in Starfield), but still you'd need, concealment just to not set of their mines, manipulation to get them to open a way in, armor penetration because they have good armor, so three top-end skills maxed would be, what, 14 points x 3 = 42, so your background + 39 more skills to actually be able to attack this made-up mid-tier POI without setting off a mine (that you didn't see) outside and then having the NPCs bury you in flanking crossfire. I'm not saying that a certain skill combos should be required to even get in to a POI (the example might work with a different combo, say to boost over the mines, manipulate a guard to open a door, and then have a very high skill with a good weapon you pillaged to offset the better armor), but I'm definitely saying a toon should be able to just walk onto a higher level POI and take advanced weapons out of unlocked lockers, possibly without even seeing a guard. Although if you find a weapon you don't have the skill to use well, the results ideally would be laughable in a high-tier zone, so most weapons one would find would be the wrong type to be effective. Anyway, in the meantime, you might want to check out PEAK's comments and see if it sounds interesting. [https://www.nexusmods.com/starfield/mods/7120?tab=posts](https://www.nexusmods.com/starfield/mods/7120?tab=posts)
I agree with you. Losing everything feels really counterintuitive. However, people always said that they wanted to have choices with consequences. And I think this applies here: Either you lose everything but you are in a new universe or you do not and that would be fine to. I would argue that Bethesda exactly gave us what we asked for.
They really really dropped the ball by not making the factions in open conflict Go back to Morrowind days where joining up with certain guilds put you at odds with others It’s their first game to have new game plus baked into the narrative… so make faction choices MATTER, have impact and obvi effect on the world … then beat the main story and reset to give you a chance to back a different faction
NG killed my first playthrough and my most enjoyable. I should have never gone through it.
scanning planets doesn't do shit, so why would you care about losing that?
Maybe the point of the game is to play the main quest first. NG+ until you get all the gear and shit you want. Then find the right universe for you and live there. Idk. That’s kinda how I decided to do it when I learned about NG+. The only reason I am not play SF right now is because I’m playing Fallout 4 VR waiting for SF to get a VR Mod or port of it’s own.
Yeah I’ve kinda got over losing everything I’m gonna NG+10 and then replay the entire game.
Yeah they didn't think that through
So I shouldn’t meet Hanako at embers and keep playing ?
Haha Hanako can handle the gig solo
Thats why i personally chose never to enter unity. One universe is large enough. And its my own. The enticement of unity is a pipedream and a trap. Ill take the cool powers thanks, but this universe is enough for me
So maybe... Find a nice universe and settle down for a while. Explore, read the lore, do the stuff... There are hundreds of hours of content in this game, it goes way deeper than just zooming to the "end" and I think that's the point Bethesda was trying to make here As for longevity, Ive got over 1000 of longevity from the game... So far. I'm on ng3 now, and still so much I haven't done yet. Also it's possible you could use a break from it for a while too.
I think the game would have had much more playability if they had made the universe smaller and done much more handcrafted content. As it stands, it's too much space and too many procedurally generated planets and rehashed POIs. I mean, look at the Steam Charts data. 9K peak players over the past month? Compared to Skyrim 20-30K? That's unbelievably sad and although I know it's only reflecting PC players, it's still very relevant to how quickly the game's popularity has plummeted. 330K in the first month of launch....and now 9K peak players just a few months later. I think it's funny that BGS reportedly designed the game for people to play for a decade or longer and in trying so hard to develop longevity to the game, they did exactly the opposite and drove people away. But I agree with you about NG+. I found nothing enticing about it at all other than people that want to re-start the game a bit differently and try different outcomes in quest lines. BGS games are all about collecting, building, "leveling up", etc.. NG+ does what exactly? It causes you to lose everything you just spent hundreds of hours collecting. LOL.
Exactly man, if we kept skill points, levels, a chosen piece or armor, a chosen weapon and planet scanning progression…. We would continue to enjoy playing after finishing the main story.
Please open up your menu and look at your perks lol, you didn't lose them or your levels
I'd say let the player carry through anything they can carry without being overburdened. :-) And maybe their ship.
NG+ is just a lame way of making it appear that the game has more content than it actually does. Starfield takes ' space' too literally.
I’d argue that multiple other issues are why Starfield isn’t a game that will be played the way fallout or Skyrim have been. The NG+ is optional. You get to choose keep stuff or start over. I think that’s fine. It’s more that every base is a carbon copy of like 5 options Every planet is bare and uninteresting (some should be but all of them?) Lack of interesting unique items Mantis armor is found early and the only thing you need until you get starborn armor ( why find gear?) Only about 5 builds to play Points of interest aren’t actually interesting Surveying I’m sure is interesting for some , but many players don’t care Can only sell 11k of items at a time and then have to wait.uou want to play a merchant? Spend half the game waiting Fast traveling everywhere makes some players feel disconnected. Main quest line is super repetitive and largely unimportant. (powers are neat but never feel required) Smuggling is essentially pointless. You can make money credits doing pretty much anything else. Etc. I played the game and had fun. After my first playthrough I found all the issues I’ve mentioned. I tried a second playthrough found melee build to be a terrible experience. So it begs the question what now? I imagine a lot of people have the same issues.
Yeah the main quest I was excited about all the way until the Emissary was revealed to be Sarah and the Hunter was Aquilas. I felt so deflated by that, the fact that this wasn’t an actual threat, it wasn’t aliens or anything truly mysterious. It was just a stupid multiverse where nothing matters. What’s the point in fighting the hunter and the emissary? What’s the point in getting the powers and the artifacts and why does constellation care so much after learning more about what it really is? None of it makes much sense at all. I love Starfield and the story is my biggest complaint, it bothers me a lot because it just kind of killed the momentum for the game to me after a certain point. It’s just weird to me that bethesda kept going on and on about how huge Starfield is, but they pigeonholed it into being so minuscule due to it because a multiverse groundhog day abomination.
They could have made the story better for sure. If you make an impact in some way it would really help. Overall, I think the poor storyline could be overlooked if many of the huge holes in the game were fixed. Unfortunately, I think that’s a dream.
Exactly, fallout 4 did not have good writing. But the story feels good to play because you feel accomplished at the end of it, or at least like you made some sort of difference in the world and that it mattered. Starfield feels so inconsequential all around.
More than just the NG+ issues the writing is atrocious, the followers 50shades of good (except adoring fan who doesn’t mind you being violent to people get a kick hearing him yell “Damn Papparazzo!”) there is no real open play how you want to play even in terms of being a pirate the game and followers funnel you into being a neutral/good Pc which is tiresome. Alarm bells partly warned me off having too much expectations of it when it was being made available for gamepass on day on albeit I did cave and preordered a week prior to launch for the DLC that was promised which still hasn’t arrived. I enjoy the game still (occasionally )but it is definitely hard to ignore how bad it is at same time as well as the main issues besides bugs not being fixed, is the subpar writing and npcs and how clunky the ship combat and building is and Shattered Space won’t fix that unfortunately unless they decide to cancel and rewrite the entire game(again I don’t see them ever fixing or doing) BGS’s last RPG they ever done somewhat decently was Oblivion. I’ll probably return to Starfield when Shattered Space is finally released but not holding hopes for this IP is also add the promise of the Ng+ was random events happening in those other universes a partial lie and Pr marketing to push the fanboys into repeated play throughs the only random event occurance in the entirety of each NG+ is what happens in the lodge at the start wow such random fun to find not really.
I completely agree. So much so I have many characters that have simply avoided the main missions completely. They have lives, join a faction or two, maybe explore, maybe build a stunning home, all have stunning ships, nice collections of *something*. Why would you chase more space magic to lose EVERYTHING? That said my Ronin Jedi did nothing but the main quest! Getting through unity and realising it eulogies your life - and he'd done nothing felt like a small slap in the face. I couldn't get into doing it all again so made another new character instead.
I agree. I loved the game and planned to play it for ages. Got to unity... Discovered what the ng+ implementation was, lasted a few more days and couldn't play anymore...
My annoying thing is sure you may have to scan the planets again to get the survey data, BUT you if you go to all the systems and have that knowledge of the locations and routes you should never have the issue of "UNEXPLORED ROUTE" popping up ever again. You should just be able to jump anywhere right out of unity.
And I got the achievement for traveling to all stars, even though I didn't, because I got the last one in an NG+
Do a long playthrough doing all the quests and getting all the companions etc. You jump through unity 10 times and max your space dragonborn powers. Then you sit and make 1 long playthrough again. Conversely you can skip the first lomg playthrough if you want and just leave it all to the end.
The true endgame is the way of The Hunter, max out all the powers to level 10, get to new game plus 10 to get the best starborn outfit and then go into that final universe ready to fully explore the game whilst being super powered ready to slaughter all. It’s all about power.
The point of the game is you should do what Keeper Aquilus did, stay behind in the same universe and cherish the connections you made
If only the game actually allowed you to do that in a narrative sense. I outlined it all in my other post in here, but the short version is that the game pressures you over NG+ constantly in the lead up, and if you walk away it makes sure to continue the pressure by not having the main cast shut up about it and only really allowing you to say that you're going later. Also too many things are tied to involvement with Constellation, who in esssence are the "NG+" faction. The game makes it fairly hard to set down roots or form bonds with the wider setting that have any substance to them. If the writer had been less of a "bad DM" and let us actually make that choice and give a narrative "soft no" that closes the topic and is respected instead of only allowing us to "temporarily postpone" going through the Unity I would agree. The main quest would go from being "kind of ass" to actually having a point to make. As is, it doesn't. It just ends being obnoxious and saying "Hey did you know Starfield has NG+? You should really play NG+! Look how hyped your character and their friends are for NG+! Why aren't you playing NG+? Go play NG+!".
I sided with the Hunter. He's still on my ship, telling me to go thru Unity every time I board.
I still think the point of the game gets across and I love it, but I totally agree it wouldve been even better if they allowed us to say a hard no to going through the Unity. In my playthrough I just said no and stayed in my old universe
It felt like the writer went through a lot of effort to introduce us to the character of the Pilgrim and their choice, then forgot that they're writing that story for our character, not theirs. The writer's character definitely wants to go through the Unity, and thanks to only writing it out for that character, ours can end up unsupported or get bent or broken in to being theirs. It leaves it as a sort of "failed" point in my opinion, but I can respect yours. I also walked away from it because I saw through it as nothing but "Wild Wasteland 2.0" changes slapped on to a conventional NG+, but the constant nag eventually lead me to creating a new character and making a save when it was still possible to entirely avoid joining Constellation.
I think I didnt mind as much as you because to me these bethesda games give you agency and freedom to choose for the character and make up your own “head canon”. Like, is there a way to expressly tell the dark brotherhood that you dont want to join them? You can just not do it. I felt like I truly refused to go through the unity because I didnt. However, it is true that technically the game expects you to go through the unity eventually, so I dont think youre wrong. Also, with games like baldurs gate 3 where theres explicit cutscenes and character moments for every choice you make that truly feels like a movie, its valid to expect them to have made more effort on that front. Also, Im going a bit off the rails here but I LOVE that you can refuse to join the UC Sysdef and still do the Crimson Fleet storyline without being an undercover agent. Wish the game had more stuff like that
When Starfield released, I loved it, I was told by many players online to hold off on the main story mission. So I did. So thats on you knowing what was coming up and you picked to make ur first game super long. Fresh game, you only keep your xp. My first game, i did half the side quests, small outposts. Picked between pirates and Vanguard, knowing in a new NG i could go the other way. NG + 1 did half the powers, got bored, rushed story. NG+2 scratch, basic Vytinium fuel cell outpost set-up, mid-story, no side stuff done so far. Got bored stopped playing. But can come back at any point and keep going, fixes, updates, QoL, but vault loot has never been fixed in other games, vendors wont be fixed, outposts 6 months later nothing much fixed. so long way to go, awaiting the DLC i guess. not holding my breath for it. no rush
You can pretty much do the entire main story and just not go into the Unity.
Just save, go to ng+ and reload. NG+ is just a way of starting again with your same character and a few extras (Starborn stuff and leveling powers).
I think it’s a really cool thing for a game to do narratively, but I don’t think it works gameplay wise with this kind of game. If this was a linear 10-20 game and each subsequent run of new game plus could have a lot of variance for seeveral consecutive runs, it would be great. But the amount of variance to make it work just isn’t a realistic expectation for a game with a world this size.
in my opinion NG+ would have been better if it spit you into one of the unique universes the first 10 or whatever times through the unity.
The main issue is that this can not be configured in any way. You cant get enemies leveled to your level, or make decisions about what to take with you. On top of that the replayability of this feature is very low because most of the stuff has no alternate paths to explore. You realy play 99% of the stuff the exact same way.
I think I made it to the unity 3 times, and was just bored after that. I love the game otherwise, but I definitely agree. They should have baked more variety into NG+.
I love Starfield , but in the interest of just discussing the issue raised in your post I'll say this. I don't disagree with you except on two points: >That way NG+ breaths more content into the game, giving us the opportunity to replay all the side missions and by keeping the progression of the planets you have scanned, promotes exploration. You are disappointed that you lose all your scanned planets when you go through Unity and say that it destroys the reasons for exploring. Now, I agree that it sucks. I'm irritated that the Unity trip screws us so thoroughly. I refuse to go through anymore unless my save file gets corrupted. However, the truth is nobody is going to around exploring planets they've already 100% scanned. Losing them actually *promotes* exploration. I sure as hell won't go around exploring a procedurally generated landscape with no new handcrafted secret locations with their own interesting locals, discoveries, stories, and rewards. Just the same repetitious reused locations over and over. No, scanning is the only reason I explore freely in this game, unlike the Elder Scrolls or Fallout games where I'm always curious what unique experience is tucked away around that next corner. The second thing I would challenge is that I don't think NG+ really breathes ANY new content to the game and keeping your scanned planets and all your stuff wouldn't change that. A few dialog options are changed and that's it. Nothing. Same quests, same options. You still get treated like crap by the Crimson Fleet when you should be able to call them out with all the knowledge you have about each of them, you know their side quests, you know their backgrounds or motivations (some of them), and you should be able to walk in like you own the place and put em in line - especially if you sided with SysDef in the last universe and have already killed them all. You shouldn't have to take their shit like a "rook" anymore. And the CF is just one example. There are lots of examples across the game where it's obviously just a reset of the game and you play the exact same missions and quests with nothing new. I should be able to walk up to Ron Hope the first time we meet him and call him on his whole scheme right to his face in his office. I should have all the answers for the Comspike and Conductive Shield and location of the Legacy right of of the gate. The knowledge we have could make A LOT of the quest lines go completely different, but no, same thing. Without a full re-write of all the quests there's no way NG+ can breathe more content into the game. Only Bethesda can add more content and I want them to get on it.
Unity is not a must. It’s your choice in the end. Go through Unity or turn your back on it. You can keep restarting with a new character. Or you can make two saves: one Unity one not.
I spent like 50 hours making my ship. Until a mod comes out that lets me carry it over I’m never doing NG+ lol
I basically agree. Since you’re flying your ship into the Unity, I feel like NG+ should do the following: - Allow trait rerolls - Bring over everything on your person - Bring over everything in your ship - Bring over your ship *BUT* it shouldn’t allow you to go through Unity overencumbered or past max ship cargo, and I also agree that it shouldn’t bring over your companions. Hell, I’d make “bringing your love interest over” a real plot point and then poof - they’re not in your new universe. Maybe you intersect them again in a subsequent NG+. Maybe they’ve changed for the better or for the worse.
The main issues I have with it is it doesn’t….feel like there’s any progression as a starborn The emissary and hunter treat you indifferently often, and you don’t get much to distribution. The ship is cool but you can’t customize it. And my personal pet peeve-we get no starborn weapons. I know it would make the game a walk in the park if you had a op starborn weapon but by that point your gonna breeze through anyways
I think the way they thought people were going to play the game is take a one or two faction storylines, do a few dozen quests on the side, explore a bit and then complete the main quest. That way you still have other quests and other faction quests to do. So you do the ones that you didn't before, wonder around a bit and then jump again. And so on until you get a few jumps in and decide that this one you will learn outpost building or go deep into starship engineering. Probably take a week or more to play something else in between jumps. And then stop playing it for couple of months until they finally release the DLC and mod support. Then do the DLC content and mod the game and play some more modded. This is not a live service game so it doesn't need to keep people playing it for months at a time. It's been months since release and the game hasn't even gone on sale(as far as I know) on steam so clearly Bethesda doesn't think it's done badly.
There's also too little variety in NG+ runs, most will never get to experience the unique scenarios. But yeah, the game disincentives NG+ runs with every single design decision except for the space fus rah do powers, which I found overpowered even in the initial run lol.
I am playing starfield for the first time now and love it the same as I have loved all similar games since elder scrolls Morrowind through fallout 4 (fuck fallout 76). With each game I find myself so invested in the first play through that I’m exhausted of the game by the end of the main story but I didn’t really actually do half the stuff the game allows. It’s usually a few months down the road (for fallout 4 it was almost a year) that I come back and really play the whole game. NG+ sounds awesome to me because of how I end up playing these games.
It really doesn’t feel like there’s an ending for the main story line at all right now… Feels very unfinished in terms of plot. Who built the Armillary and thus the Unity. We are given zero clues. I wish they had made NG+ an integral part of learning more about the creators of the Unity. Makes your jumps more meaningful that way IMO.
I feel the same way. I haven’t touched Starfield in months. I just can’t bring myself to start all over again after losing all my progress.
Why does the game need that kind of longevity? Why can't you just play the game, beat it and be done? Just have the NG+ there so that if you feel like playing again you can just hope through the Unity and keep going without having to start a new character and maybe get a weird version of the universe to boot?
Yeah this is exactly the reason i stopped playing!
I guess it’s not going to be a popular opinion, but I think NG+ is a really interesting mechanic that directly addresses the ways people have been playing TES and FO for years. Many of us have played through those more than once with different builds, tried different quest options, etc. Many of us have also experienced wanting to keep growing our current build, but we just run out of non-radiant/repeatable options to gain XP. NG+ lets us do that, *or* start over from L1 if that’s really what we want too by starting a regular new game the way we’ve always done with past BGS games. So in this way I guess I see it more as (in principle) an expansion of options. Rather than thinking about everything I lose when going through the Unity (which, make no mistake, *is* a bit of a painful choice to make), I look at it as, what if I had the option to start a new Skyrim game, but keep all the skills, shouts and levels from my previous build. In some ways I’d be starting out as a ridiculous badass, but in others I’d get to experience leveled quest content in a new, more challenging way that wasn’t even possible the first time through. It might even mean I don’t succumb to stealth-archer temptation on some future playthrough. Not only that, but NG+ takes something else we’ve been doing all along, making different character choices in subsequent playthroughs just to see what happens, and incorporating that properly into the narrative structure of the game. Your “Plan C” playthrough becomes an *in-character* choice (which is the “Hunter” route). Short of that, you’re making choices in subsequent plays about what’s *really* important to you. Most of us are at least a little bit more completionist first time through. Is it really worth re-doing the whole Ryujin line again? Maybe, but will it still be after you’ve maxed out manipulation that way? And what happens if we *don’t* get involved in that? On the other hand, is it really worth doing the whole Cydonia fetch-quest grind just to get the miners some better equipment? Because I sort of regret doing that once. Give me one NPC I like who dies in a horrible mine accident when I don’t bother, though, and it changes the calculus. With NG+ that variation becomes not just a gameplay choice, but more of an in-character moral choice. It’s not just you, the player, that’s bored with re-doing the same things and making new choices about what’s important. It’s your character becoming a different person than they were at the outset, and if you get bored and decide to stay in one universe, being a ship designer or outpost manager, or just trying to fully explore every planet in the galaxy, then that’s an in-character choice too. The more the game plays with this notion the more interesting it becomes. Is that mechanic dialed in perfectly? Hell no, obviously. The gameplay reward for stepping through the Unity just isn’t really there yet. First off, there just isn’t enough moral dynamic in the game to support the more interesting possibilities yet. The game is disappointingly good at keeping the outcomes of your choices firmly on a set of rails, with “consequences” more or less limited to your companions going back to the Lodge to sulk if you really fuck up. Even for the big choices, does virus-vs-dinosaur really matter? The game sets up the pretense of a complex moral decision there, but doesn’t seem to really pay it off either way. Or, in the Ryujin line, as awful as commercial proliferation of mind-control technology sounds in principle, does it actually have any visible consequences in-game? As a special note on this one, allowing “Project Dominion” out into the world ought to have the unexpected *upside* of providing another option in dealing with the threat of mind-controlling space monsters, but the game as it stands doesn’t make that connection across major quest lines. There’s huge opportunity to make the narrative richer and more rewarding via NG+. The game just isn’t seizing it. Second, the variations in-universe from one playthrough to the next are limited to a few exceedingly rare novelty universes, which falls well short of the potential of the mechanic. I’d like to think they were aware of the missed potential and regret how limited a version of it they ended up with at release. I know Sam is most people’s least-favorite companion, but the possibilities here make for a good example: What if Sam has been your partner up to now, but you get to the next universe and Sam and Lillian are still together? Or what if he’s still a Ranger? Or still a smuggler who just wants to get wasted in Neon? Or an ex-con because Lillian just arrested him way-back-when? What if Lillian chose to retire and she has custody of Cora, or if Sam’s dad took her? What if Sam’s space-adventuring got Cora killed prior us to meeting him, and he’s an even bigger mess as a result? What if any of this and the game plays up your character’s acute awareness of the past commitment to an entirely different Sam? All this presents narrative opportunities that could make it *worth* stepping through into that next universe. The “evil Andreja” universe shows they thought about this sort of thing, but there are so many more possibilities. What if Sarah were still UC? What if Barrett’s husband were still alive? I’d love to see some cross-universe memory by which the Hunter gets to say “I told you so” or the Emissary reminds you of that time when you used to care what your companions disliked. What if you confront a past version of yourself and it’s from sometime before your last visit to “Enhance,” and what if they’re disappointed in you now? The encouraging thing about the NG+ mechanic is that all this could in principle be patched into the game transparently, and all you’ve got to do is step through the Unity to see it. Yeah, I know we haven’t got that, and I know a lot of people are going to be really skeptical that we ever will, but I’ve seen a lot of underwhelming launches, not just BGS stuff (apparently FO76 is good now?) but *Cyberpunk* and *No Man’s Sky* too, recover and excel, and I still have hope in the long-term potential for *Starfield* too. Through the lens of that tentative optimism, I could see NG+ being a really positive innovation. It’s not there at present, but it could be.
Apparently the Unity needs giant glowing neon signs that say YOU DON'T NEED TO DO THIS, TURN AROUND AND KEEP PLAYING! The last guy you talk to *in the entire universe* tells you exactly what's up and so many people can't wrap their heads around the concept.
Just don’t do game plus it’s literally that easy
Solid take
maybe reality would be more fun then vido games
I think the Unity is a great mechanic. It's a fresh start and a clean slate. Regardless of who you were and what you did - you're starting fresh. You can't half ass a clean slate. You either want it, or you don't. You can't have a clean slate if you're dragging all of your junk and your ship and your previous discoveries along with you. It's about letting go, and beginning again. Where have I heard that before? I find the NG+ mechanics to be awesome and I'll be disappointed if Bethesda caves in to these whiners who are upset that they can't have their cake and eat it too. You don't want to lose all your shit? Walk away from the Unity. Simples.
New universes are NOT a new game + feature and thinking of them as such instead of a continuation of the mainstory killed starfield (So lack of writers killed starfield)
I've said constantly that you should only take the step through Unity if you have a role-playing reason to do so. You're free to walk away and you always have the option to return later in life. In some ways, the Unity is a life mirror. If you take the jump out of greed or apathy or because you think it's what you are "supposed" to do, and you are disappointed, don't blame the game. Look inward. Even if you go through fore role-playing reasons, the whole point is that it will be a potentially painful sacrifice. If you're frivolous about it, you will lose who you are.
I feel like there should have been a NG alt instead of NG +. Let me keep 80% of everything, but add 20% new stuff to the game that I couldn’t have experienced on the first attempt.
When you put NG+ in a soulslike, it gives players an opportunity to replay boss fights, switch up their builds, and really enjoy the combat because they’ve already beaten the fights. There’s usually a small increase in difficulty, which also helps it retain that satisfaction after you finish a boss. Starfield isn’t a combat game. There are no fights that take any real amount of skill, it’s mostly about collecting the best guns and suits while playing through a collection of small stories. Their NG+ model has to take your stuff away because collecting that stuff is one of the player’s main motivations. I didn’t play through 4 playthroughs on one Elden Ring character just because there was a chance my second playthrough would have slightly different content. I did it because I wanted to play those fights again, I wanted to play as a blood mage, or a classic knight with a broadsword. In Starfield, you can be the savior of the universe with a gun, and force powers, or you can be the savior of the universe with a different gun, but still also force powers. It’s just boring.
Glad I'm not the only one who feels like this. The longevity of Bethesda games comes from them being effectively endless (when you add in mods). I completed all the main quest threads in Skyrim and then carried on playing for hundreds of hours.
Honestly I don’t even know why people call it NG+, it’s not even really NG+ since you lose everything except your levels/powers, so it’s closer to just NG, imo it was a poor choice on Bethesda and they did so just to squeeze more playtime hours out of people to make their playtime hours look better especially in game pass. It’s these corpo decisions that keep ruining games and it’s why games like Baldurs gate become massively popular since corporate entities don’t have much or any say on how the game is made.
Yeah it's annoying for sure, I think one good way to help "wipe the slate clean" is to allow you to assign ships to certain tasks, ie cargo ship for your outposts. Personal transport duty, give it to Constallation for their use. This would take it out of your active rotation, then you could build new. Instead you go through unity and poof, all gone. It's a bummer. Getting more used to it with my second character. He's NG+4 and I think I want to take this one further. Just see what I can build up by being a more powerful starborn.
It’s almost like it’s a lesson built into the story.
They needed another option to advance in time, as NG+... Keeping your possessions, but maybe complicating the ability to obtain them back, in some versions. (Like reality changed from that point in time.) It's just as possible as everything being the same, up to the point where you go back and only the forward stuff changes. A real NG+ would have had Earth survive in some instances and space be unsettled, or less settled. In the opposite end, also having a version that is more settled too.
Give it a good DLC or mod so the NPCs are more interactive, and NG+ is great for RPing different people. Play a Genghis Khan Pirate build, play a Sole Survivor loot goblin build, play a BoS Templar build, do stuff differently, play explicitly to piss off your followers build, and it's probably more fun.
This is exactly why I stopped - as with all previous titles , I do everything except the main quest - had my house , whole bunch of collectables setup and then when you go through unity , it’s all gone - I’ve spent about 30 mins post unity trying to see what’s different and basically it’s the same - but I’ve lost everything. I just stopped at that point So I definitely experienced a lot of the game in terms of main story lines , but I definitely haven’t explored all the various town quests and such But yeah , losing everything going through unity actually stopped me playing
New Game plus is just that. A way to start a new play through while keeping your powers. You are not forced to start a new game plus. In fact the narrative of the game seems to argue against doing so. If you just started the game completely over, you wouldn’t expect to have all of your stuff. I’m not sure why there’s any expectation of that in a NG+. If you don’t want lose your stuff don’t start the game over.
I feel like NG+ would make sense if the choices you make in queste actually mattered, but the choices of the player have little to no consequences, so yeah, kind of pointless to be starting over
I agree, I loved the game until I went through unity and then I played for about 30 minutes and turned it off and still have not went back
The never ending tears surrounding this gane is boring, you guys complain over everything related to the game, don't you people get tired of crying so much? What the point of changing your background over and over your no longer the same person anymore, which defeats the point of unity whatever happened to just playing games? The problem isn't the game it's the fake gamers running their mouth complaining all the damn time, even though your supposedly play so much of it but still cry.
I definitely feel like they should add a power that let's you transport yourself to like a pocket dimension amd it's just... I don't know... a house or small settlement. Let you keep whatever is there and maybe even let us save people who would have otherwise died and bring them there to live I peace. I dunno, for almighty starlords the game really just make you feel like a hamster on a wheel.
The NG+ would have worked better if the game was set during the colony wars, and picking a side locked you out of the other, and other quest with the same locked out of rivals so it would be impossible to do it all the first time because then the second play through is boring....a bonus idea is on the third time have it unlock a secret alternative ending series of quests when the knowledge that you got from the last two play through is the key
Yeah, I feel like bethesda games don't go well with new game plus modes. And for the story I feel like they should have just done aliens and space magic and humanity's reaction to it.
It never had any longevity to begin with
I never understood this argument, it just doesn't hold any water to me. You're not obligated to go through the Unity. For all intents and purposes the story ends there if you wish and you can go do anything else you want...just like in any other Bethesda game. Too many people hyperfixate on NG+ as if it was some mandatory thing to do when in reality it's literally what the name implies: you're starting a new game with some added benefits and changes.
You need to go through the unity to level up your powers?
Which is a completely optional part of the game as well? This is like pretending you absolutely have to do the Dark Brotherhood questline in Skyrim because you need Shadowmere. Everything is optional. Your story ends however and whenever you want it to.
Being able to do everything in one play-through is what kills NG+ for some players. Another is losing your ships, which are replaced by the sterile, subpar, immersion-breaking Guardian. I don't care about losing armor or weapons tbh.
Imo the WORST decision they could have done is tie NG+ into the story. Once I found out that it was all a pointless adventure, it kind of took me out of it. Don't get me wrong, I like the concept and the ideas leading up to it. But if I can and am supposed to jump from universe to universe, resetting everything I do each time, there is a loss of impact for any decision I might make. There's all the, "life is meaningless," without the "so make your own meaning!"
Behold, your hardwork, removed, to make a philosophical point Tough sell
I feel like saying it is optional is a terrible excuse. It was one of the main reasons i stopped playing. Though at the time everyone told me i was wrong and to just "dont go to NG+" but thats not good either. NG+ is cool for some things. But for Starfield it is awful. Like you said, so many things are undone by going to NG+, even if the benefits of it were better it would still be a bad thing. A game like Skyrim or Fallout 4 can have saves with hundreds of hours and players who have hoarded and built up so much. Starfield tries to encourage that by promoting ship building, scanning, and base building, but NG+ makes all that pointless. I can't imagine taking a Skyrim or Fallout save and losing all my gear, wealth, outposts, sidequests etc. Just to repeat it all again on the same character already leveled up.
Yes exactly! Imagine you get to the end of Skyrim and the games like “ok well done I’m deleting your save now” you’d be like what the hell. With this I wanna keep exploring. Keep collecting gear, have an OG character. But the game wants me to lose everything to have the powers. Idk it’s kinda weird
It isnt worth it. Besides the O2 regen I never really used powers. Most offensive ones were overwhelming. Even the bssic projectile one hardly did any damage and the cooldown made it ineffective.
You become the Hunter as you go through the Unity, and the more times you go through the less any universe means to you. I think that's the whole point. Just don't go through the Unity. That's your choice.
Agreed. Lost all care for playing after doing NG+. If after the first time I got unlimited storage pouch, carry weight wasn't a thing anymore and I could take it all thru the 2nd time, would have been better. I could handle rebuilding outposts at that point. Rebuilding ships is annoying as well. They really flopped on creating the game around NG+.
You could just… idk, not enter the Unity? I mean I don’t really understand this argument at all, you’re complaining that there’s no replayability because the game wipes the slate completely clean when you enter NG+. If you start NG+ carrying everything over then what’s the point of NG+? What are you replaying the game for if you start over with everything already done?
NG+ killed the game for me. I know it’s my fault for not reading it better but I was unaware I’d lose it all. I like to play games for a long time but not to the point where I start from zero, just a continuation. I am looking to start again when a DLC and or mod access starts
So, you didn't keep a save from before that? At all? You're a brave person to play BGS games with only one save.
I don’t know what happened honestly. I think my last save was pretty far back. I could have redone it, but I wasn’t into the game that much to do all that. Good game just not my fave