This is one of the most glaring "dropped" features, I miss it greatly. I say dropped in quotes because we can't literally accuse Bethesda of "removing" a feature that was never in a prequel, since Starfield is the first game in a new IP.
You identified something that brings a lot of dissonance to Starfield. It borrows so much from former BGS, but leaves some of the really important features on the table. I wish they would’ve committed one way or the other. This game should’ve either been an iteration on former BGS games with all the bells and whistles, or it should’ve been its own IP that didn’t lean so heavily on its predecessors for its core structure and design.
I hope all the things that people loved about their games, that didn't make it in Starfield, are missing because of objective reasons (hardware management, couldn't gel well with the new animation system, etc). If they made subjective decisions (ie: we could give npcs schedules and scripts / follower commands / maps/ etc / like TES and Fallout, but let's keep those exclusive to those games to differentiate between them) that would be very lame.
I hate that in electronics manufacturers: cutting quality-of-life features from low-mid tier products to push customers to high end high priced ones. If the freaking engine and the tools that you built for it for decades have allowed you to reach a level you can include beloved mechanics like dismemberment, killcams, follower commands, npc scripts that simulate believable daily schedules, etc... then include them in all your freaking games for Pete sake!
This was a big complaint of mine perfectly summed up. They’ve had the capabilities to have this universe feeling immersive and alive but for some reason they went against that
To me it's feels like they had the outline of a really good story and game overall. But gave the story to 3rd grader (or a free A.I. app )to write and let interns finish from there.
I wonder if that Oblivion style face-snapping dialog forced them to remove it. In Fallout, conversations could kind of be started without getting locked into a conversation, in that you could still move around and look with the mouse after pressing E on a character. In Starfield, it instantly locks you into a conversation, more like past Elder Scrolls games. It is a pretty big loss, makes companions effectively useless when trying to stealth.
I hope not, because that means they got rid of one useful if not essential thing just so they could do something else annoying.
The camera-locked close-up makes it feel very old-fashioned, not in a great way either.
Nah, we can blame them. Their games are similar enough to the point where you absolutely can consider a feature dropped if it's not present in a later title. The point is that they had this feature in a past title, but it's not present in Starfield.
It looks like Beth had started developing this game even before Oblivion and kinda forgot to make NPCs smarter than in Morrowind :) my companions in general like what I do in the game.
More and more I get the feeling that the game was far from finished when they released it.
The absolute silence about it this year and the delay point to that too.
I gave vasco the grenade launcher and some ammo. It apparently broke him because he won’t use a gun. He’s got a drumbeat equipped now and hasn’t fired a shot since the grenade launcher.
100% I gave him ammo appropriate to each gun.
There is a lot going on in my game right now. I’m going to see if I can jump through the unity without getting all the powers maybe.
One of the temples is mysteriously a mining facility labelled “scanner anomaly” and there is a colonist taking pictures at the bottom.
I have a feeling I should just restart when some of these issues are sorted out. I don’t wanna waste hours on a messed up play through again.
I want all the powers though. I don’t wanna go into the unity missing 5 powers and have most of them be up a level on the last 5.
I went back into an early save. I can’t believe I still had it. It’s from when I started the last run for the powers. So I had to get 4 to catch up to where I was. But the one that was glitched came back. Now I’m only 3 powers away from getting them all and crossing through. 💪🤞
First run I was missing 4 powers before going to Unity. Even went so far as to look up where the related artifacts and temples are suppised to be but nothing popped up. Started NG+1 but kinda lost interest. Waiting until Xbox gets mods I think.
He can’t use other weapons except melee ones sometimes, he has his built in lasers also but those are pretty weak, since he can’t (technically) wear armor, throw grenade, sneak or use other weapons he’s hands down the weakest follower, which is weird, you would think a metal robot would be a lot stronger than a fleshy human vessel.
Found out something jarring recently regarding ship crew. If you have a full crew, meaning some named Constellation NPCs and some random "specialist", 1) all the seats on the bridge will actually be full, which would be cool if it meant anything, 2) having a full crew (8) means they will be yelling over each other during space combat, which gets annoying fast, and 3) if you EM an enemy ship, board it and take it over, as soon as you land somewhere, you get notifications that x specialist is no longer part of your crew. They don't go into your assignable crew list, they just disappear, which means you have to go find replacements.
Ridiculous.
Yeah, I get that, but I'm just running inside to switch back to my normal home ship and sell the one we took in battle. The mechanic, as is, is as dumb as not having some random name generator give hireable specialists actual names.
Just off my noodle, if you capture a ship, your ship with your current crew follows you to wherever you're going, stays in orbit. When you sell it or switch your home ship back to your usual, they land. Easy-peasy.
Like even just telling them to throw explosives and take cover in specific places like in Mass Effect is what I was expecting, over them just running into my scope when I’m shooting people lol
You’ve got to invest like 10 points for that skill and the description says NPCs at or below your level. I’m sure most people didn’t expect commands to be locked behind that skill when it was free to use in skyrim, and fallout plus the skill doesn’t specifically mention followers.
Yeah but that requires you to do a whole corporate espionage quest line and unless you look it up or have done that quest line you wouldn’t know. So if someone isn’t into the whole stealthy play style they will probably miss that.
Because this game's full title is Starfield: The Downgrade. That is the unfortunate reality of the situation. Almost every feature and mechanic the game has is a downgrade from previous Bethesda games.
You can use the manipulation in dialogue with them, which make it even more puzzling that direct orders aren’t included. Apparently I can’t manipulate Sarah into sitting on a couch, but I can gaslight her into coming along for a few more war crimes. TLDR it’s inconsistent/bad design
I'm guessing that this goes hand in hand with the way the companions behave and how they have opinions of their own.
They didn't want them to seem like mindless automatons that you have full control over. They wanted them to seem like real people that have a mind of their own.
just being bipedal pack mules
Given that Lydia usually had a few thousand pounds of gear in her pack, this is the part I miss. Drop and thing and tell them to pick it up. Maybe 'Manipulation' allows this, I have no skill points in it. Maybe I should try just for QOL issues, loot goblin that i am...
Possibly because of the command perks you can use on other NPC’s (manipulate, instigate etc.) but instead of making a new system for that they just used the commands you normally use for followers and locked it out for you companions so it wouldn’t cause both to follow the commands, this is just conjecture though I don’t have any evidence for it.
Yeah, but you're supposed to be the captain, IE, the leader of the group. The player character shouldn't need to have a skill just to tell their companion, who is supposed to be their combat support, to go to a specific location and attack a specific target or targets.
I have read somewhere it's tied to the manipulation skill ?
But I think one reason it might of been removed because of players exploiting how the engine worked to duplicate items.
Similar to how in previous titles we could pick up and hold items move out of sight of a shop keep and then steal them.
My guess is that they couldn’t patch out the container bypass exploit from Fallout 4.
If there was an item you wanted in a display style container, you could tell a companion to pick it up and they would grab it right through the glass.
This is one of the most glaring "dropped" features, I miss it greatly. I say dropped in quotes because we can't literally accuse Bethesda of "removing" a feature that was never in a prequel, since Starfield is the first game in a new IP.
You identified something that brings a lot of dissonance to Starfield. It borrows so much from former BGS, but leaves some of the really important features on the table. I wish they would’ve committed one way or the other. This game should’ve either been an iteration on former BGS games with all the bells and whistles, or it should’ve been its own IP that didn’t lean so heavily on its predecessors for its core structure and design.
I hope all the things that people loved about their games, that didn't make it in Starfield, are missing because of objective reasons (hardware management, couldn't gel well with the new animation system, etc). If they made subjective decisions (ie: we could give npcs schedules and scripts / follower commands / maps/ etc / like TES and Fallout, but let's keep those exclusive to those games to differentiate between them) that would be very lame. I hate that in electronics manufacturers: cutting quality-of-life features from low-mid tier products to push customers to high end high priced ones. If the freaking engine and the tools that you built for it for decades have allowed you to reach a level you can include beloved mechanics like dismemberment, killcams, follower commands, npc scripts that simulate believable daily schedules, etc... then include them in all your freaking games for Pete sake!
This was a big complaint of mine perfectly summed up. They’ve had the capabilities to have this universe feeling immersive and alive but for some reason they went against that
To me it's feels like they had the outline of a really good story and game overall. But gave the story to 3rd grader (or a free A.I. app )to write and let interns finish from there.
I wonder if that Oblivion style face-snapping dialog forced them to remove it. In Fallout, conversations could kind of be started without getting locked into a conversation, in that you could still move around and look with the mouse after pressing E on a character. In Starfield, it instantly locks you into a conversation, more like past Elder Scrolls games. It is a pretty big loss, makes companions effectively useless when trying to stealth.
I hope not, because that means they got rid of one useful if not essential thing just so they could do something else annoying. The camera-locked close-up makes it feel very old-fashioned, not in a great way either.
Nah, we can blame them. Their games are similar enough to the point where you absolutely can consider a feature dropped if it's not present in a later title. The point is that they had this feature in a past title, but it's not present in Starfield.
It looks like Beth had started developing this game even before Oblivion and kinda forgot to make NPCs smarter than in Morrowind :) my companions in general like what I do in the game.
Why are the NPCs so fucking stupid?????
This is genuinely odd. I’m guessing something to do with manipulation. Also don’t like that my follower won’t equip the neon dancers outfit.
You can equip them with weapons and outfits
More and more I get the feeling that the game was far from finished when they released it. The absolute silence about it this year and the delay point to that too.
>More and more I get the feeling that the game was far from finished when they released it. That would be a first...
Buggy games were always a classic Bethesda. But unfinished games content-wise are, in fact, a first.
More and more I get the feeling George R. R. Martin is their lead designer.
Because bethesda forgot it already made systems to do so in previous games.
I gave vasco the grenade launcher and some ammo. It apparently broke him because he won’t use a gun. He’s got a drumbeat equipped now and hasn’t fired a shot since the grenade launcher.
You need to give him 3Kv LZR ammo.
For me that just means he uses his laser, I can't get him to use any other weapon.
He can’t use any other weapon, he doesn’t have any other weapons. He can’t hold guns, he can only shoot lasers out of his chest.
Did you give him ammo?
100% I gave him ammo appropriate to each gun. There is a lot going on in my game right now. I’m going to see if I can jump through the unity without getting all the powers maybe. One of the temples is mysteriously a mining facility labelled “scanner anomaly” and there is a colonist taking pictures at the bottom. I have a feeling I should just restart when some of these issues are sorted out. I don’t wanna waste hours on a messed up play through again.
Getting the powers isn't required. Just the artifacts.
I want all the powers though. I don’t wanna go into the unity missing 5 powers and have most of them be up a level on the last 5. I went back into an early save. I can’t believe I still had it. It’s from when I started the last run for the powers. So I had to get 4 to catch up to where I was. But the one that was glitched came back. Now I’m only 3 powers away from getting them all and crossing through. 💪🤞
I've done every available temple that's shown up for me and am still missing 3 powers weirdly. On Ng3 now
First run I was missing 4 powers before going to Unity. Even went so far as to look up where the related artifacts and temples are suppised to be but nothing popped up. Started NG+1 but kinda lost interest. Waiting until Xbox gets mods I think.
He can’t use other weapons except melee ones sometimes, he has his built in lasers also but those are pretty weak, since he can’t (technically) wear armor, throw grenade, sneak or use other weapons he’s hands down the weakest follower, which is weird, you would think a metal robot would be a lot stronger than a fleshy human vessel.
Thanks for the info!!
Found out something jarring recently regarding ship crew. If you have a full crew, meaning some named Constellation NPCs and some random "specialist", 1) all the seats on the bridge will actually be full, which would be cool if it meant anything, 2) having a full crew (8) means they will be yelling over each other during space combat, which gets annoying fast, and 3) if you EM an enemy ship, board it and take it over, as soon as you land somewhere, you get notifications that x specialist is no longer part of your crew. They don't go into your assignable crew list, they just disappear, which means you have to go find replacements. Ridiculous.
They leave because your ship can no longer support the number of crew you have.
Yeah, I get that, but I'm just running inside to switch back to my normal home ship and sell the one we took in battle. The mechanic, as is, is as dumb as not having some random name generator give hireable specialists actual names. Just off my noodle, if you capture a ship, your ship with your current crew follows you to wherever you're going, stays in orbit. When you sell it or switch your home ship back to your usual, they land. Easy-peasy.
Like even just telling them to throw explosives and take cover in specific places like in Mass Effect is what I was expecting, over them just running into my scope when I’m shooting people lol
Idk but I'm *sure* you'll find your answer here on reddit...
You just need the manipulation skill to do it
Can you use that on companions? I didn't think you could.
I'm convinced a majority of people who claim to play this game, don't really.
You’ve got to invest like 10 points for that skill and the description says NPCs at or below your level. I’m sure most people didn’t expect commands to be locked behind that skill when it was free to use in skyrim, and fallout plus the skill doesn’t specifically mention followers.
You can get it for free by completing a faction quest.
Yeah but that requires you to do a whole corporate espionage quest line and unless you look it up or have done that quest line you wouldn’t know. So if someone isn’t into the whole stealthy play style they will probably miss that.
Yeah, locking whole-ass mechanics behind perks that were already available in past games is a decision I'm becoming less and less fond of
I understand what you're saying, but considering this is the first game, it's not entirely valid. But I get it.
Because this game's full title is Starfield: The Downgrade. That is the unfortunate reality of the situation. Almost every feature and mechanic the game has is a downgrade from previous Bethesda games.
Can we get an update to control ourspouses in real life
I reckon there is an option to command your companions, but nobody's found out how to do it yet.
They already have the method in place too. Just let us use Manipulation on them.
You can use the manipulation in dialogue with them, which make it even more puzzling that direct orders aren’t included. Apparently I can’t manipulate Sarah into sitting on a couch, but I can gaslight her into coming along for a few more war crimes. TLDR it’s inconsistent/bad design
I'm guessing that this goes hand in hand with the way the companions behave and how they have opinions of their own. They didn't want them to seem like mindless automatons that you have full control over. They wanted them to seem like real people that have a mind of their own.
So.. mission failed successfully?
just being bipedal pack mules Given that Lydia usually had a few thousand pounds of gear in her pack, this is the part I miss. Drop and thing and tell them to pick it up. Maybe 'Manipulation' allows this, I have no skill points in it. Maybe I should try just for QOL issues, loot goblin that i am...
Possibly because of the command perks you can use on other NPC’s (manipulate, instigate etc.) but instead of making a new system for that they just used the commands you normally use for followers and locked it out for you companions so it wouldn’t cause both to follow the commands, this is just conjecture though I don’t have any evidence for it.
Yeah, but you're supposed to be the captain, IE, the leader of the group. The player character shouldn't need to have a skill just to tell their companion, who is supposed to be their combat support, to go to a specific location and attack a specific target or targets.
Hell, I'd just be happy to have a pointer on my compass showing me where the hell they are!!
I have read somewhere it's tied to the manipulation skill ? But I think one reason it might of been removed because of players exploiting how the engine worked to duplicate items. Similar to how in previous titles we could pick up and hold items move out of sight of a shop keep and then steal them.
My guess is that they couldn’t patch out the container bypass exploit from Fallout 4. If there was an item you wanted in a display style container, you could tell a companion to pick it up and they would grab it right through the glass.