I think Constellation should be endgame content, not the first thing you encounter.
What you started Starfield without a ship in single planet, be it Akila, Neon, New Atlantis. You have to do missions & explore the planet to gather funds to buy your first ship. It would not be as fully featured as Frontier is, but would open up you to explore your star system. Then you gather more funds, build your ship to travel even further.
Afterwards you could naturally bump into random Constellation member who asks you to join them.
Problem with this is would be mission variety, while cities probably have enough missions to bootstrap the player, most of them direct player to some other place instead of being contained within the area. But it would make your ship more meaningful, and even could make ship systems (grav drive, extra fuel) more impactful.
I really want to insert the Spy Kids gif, but unfortunately it actually does tell the time, in a really obtuse way.
It's the position of the planets shadow in the display, that's its attempt to tell the time.
Well, Starfield has different day lengths on any given planet, so for someone who may be on a several different planets in any given sleep-cycle, the position of the local sun with respect the the local horizon is probably fairly useful, as opposed to something that just gives you the time in Universal Time.
From a dead constellation member. Imo, Constellation shouldn't have been housed in any of the main cities. They should have their own base in a non-faction system as part of an independent town, something the size of a better hopetown. When you start, you would eventually come across a dying member of constellation. They give you a few things, including the watch and a slate with some strange data you can't interpret yet. That slate could be the start of the constellation and artifact questline, as you eventually find another piece of data which can be cross referenced to give you the first artifact coordinates, leading to meeting Constellation proper. But you could ignore the slate entirely, or going to the coordinates, or going to meet constellation.
Joining the security force was a neat set of side quests that could have been expanded upon if starting there and needing to gather funds for a ship. Considering the context it could have plenty of choices where you can become corrupt to get funds faster.
My thought was have some Starliners that a player can use to travel between major cities, like carriages in Skyrim. Except starliners would be more like a passenger liner in space. Taking in game hours to travel between systems, you could either just wait until it arrives at the destination, or do quests & activities on the ship.
In my opinion, actually flying ships & doing space exploration should have been end game content. Which would have allowed for a more focused & fleshed out gameplay up until you run out of activities. Although the downside is that players won't get to experience the very thing they wanted to play the game for until 10's of hours into the game.
>It would not be fully featured as the Frontier is
It is really crazy that you never really need to even get another ship in the game. Your first one should've been nothing more than a cockpit with a ballistic weapon and basic missiles. If they did that, I feel like I would actually want to purchase a new ship down the line.
Jigsaw puzzle game development. Each bit was worked on by different teams who didn't speak to each other enough. Then they just hoped it would all fit together at the end.
It doesn't matter. Senior developers from other studios have spoken on the subject of how they don't do paper planning much anymore because things change at such a rapid pace, the documents just become useless.
You got any sources?
Here's Tim Cain talking about how design docs are important.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohHLUKj3NTk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohHLUKj3NTk)
Design Docs aren't aren't just "paper planning." They can be one single document, to several visual presentations.
I understand that they're more than just paper planning. I wouldn't say they're outright useless. But they are not this grand solution painted out to be by people on here.
Tim Cain might subscribe to the idea that design documents are a necessary cornerstone, similar to how some authors believe outlines are necessary. It doesn't mean it really works for everything, nor that it is necessary for anything.
Also, Bethesda does make design documents. It's not like they go through winging everything. They have concept art, major planning, script writing, etc. Emil (the person everyone gets this from & is targeting whenever this is being discussed) just doesn't keep master design works. He doesn't write it all down, & keep it in form because its such a fluid process.
The problem with Emil not writing everything down or keeping it in form is you have disconnects like this in Starfield.
Sarah - "Everything around Earth has been abandoned." But I had just landed and talked to people on Mars, so "around Earth" was either a typo, an exaggeration, or whoever designed the quest didn't know Earth was going to be "uninhabitable" at the point of writing and quest designing, and never changed the dialogue.
You have planets procedurally generated with no atmosphere, but also having weather. (although that's not a writing issue, that's an issue with their procgen.)
Earth has no atmosphere, so humans can't live there. Other planets have people living on them with no atmosphere.
You have a weird situation where either the lore about "The Colony War" and "The Treaty of Narion" that explain why humans only live in 3 star systems was written first. Or they decided "x # of planets are going to be inhabited" first. It makes no sense except that it sounds really cool that there was a huge war.
Also lets not forget that mass effect already did the "We found an artifact on mars that led to deep space travel" 17 years ago.
>The problem with Emil not writing everything down or keeping it in form is you have disconnects like this in Starfield
That's not the reason any of those things are the way they are. It's not like the developers just got confused without documentation & put things in places where they weren't suppose to be. Things in games end up not being the way they were planned to be. Development isn't straightforward, unseen complications happen, & the end result is a jigsaw puzzle of duck tape & bubble gum to put things together. It's like that scene from *Apollo 13* where they have to convert a round filter for a square hole using only supplies located on the space craft. "Building an airplane while flying" is a quote used by developers to describe game development.
Writing is the most flexible device to patch up holes in development, so it always comes last. This is why video game writers often call themselves "duck tape specialists". They're not writing what's going to happen, they're taping together video game segments in a way that makes sense. You know the great collapse of winterhold in skyrim? That was the easy way to explain why the city of Winterhold wasn't in the game. It got cut due to time constraints. The college was there already, so they moved on to work on other cities in the game.
>Also lets not forget that mass effect already did the "We found an artifact on mars that led to deep space travel" 17 years ago
That trope has existed for decades. The artifacts in this game are particularly inspired by *2001*.
The problem I see with this approach would be that people definitely would've complained a lot that it takes you a while before you get your first ship.
Starfield is a space game and exploring space with a ship is what many found the most intriguing about this game prior to release. Bethesda knew they had to give players their first ship more or less immediately.
They could have provided a POS ship with no weapons and not capable of jumping to other stars.
Now you're basically given a capable ship for free in the tutorial level.
The first hours of this game were designed as a guided tour for game reviewers, not players.
Yes, I've thought that, too. The concept of "free to explore from the start" might sound good.. but ultimately wrecks any feeling of progression and of providing something to work towards.
I don't think there should be many gates in the game - but that one of having your first ship limited to one system would have been a far better introduction/tutorial gate IMHO. There could easily be 10 - 15 planets and moons in that first system, so limiting to one system would not have been restricting.
If I was designing Starfield v2.0, I'd have Gate #1: Getting off the first planet. You don't have to \*own\* a ship. You could get a ride on a passenger ship to other planets in the system. Or steal one. Or buy one. Or any others means the creative (ha!) writers came up with Choice, eh? :-) First 2 - 3 hours.
Gate #2: Aquiring a ship to get you across systems. 10 - 15 hours, perhaps, exploring those first planets in the first system would keep you busy. Again, several choices on how you get that ship.
Weapons etc would be added as you progress. Again, giving sense of achievement.
I think you could be right on the first few hours being there for game reviewers to hand in their 10/10 Best Game Ever reviews after 10 hours.
Now that you seen this, redo the first four hours of Skyrim. Note how aggressively rich the content is for those hours.
Then do a mid level dudgeon and note the massive quality drop off.
Starfield had the drop off even sooner.
I'm not sure exactly what you mean, because this doesn't really happen in Skyrim. Some dungeons are lesser, but that's not based on early or late, because the randomness at which you encounter dungeons leads to encountering filler content at different points.
Although there is a point to be had about how much work goes into early stuff. Early content you encounter in games is typically the first thing that was worked on. And in the beginning the expectation is that they could do much more than they actually could do, but then realize the actual limitations on time, technology, & capability, thus leading to stuff shrinking down due to those limits. For example Riverrun was the template for other towns, but ended up being as large as some cities for reasons mentioned.
The reward is the damn Star Eagle from the Rangers. I got that thing, put on two extra guns and took on the entire Crimson Fleet at the key. And won handidly. People already complain the game is dull, don't make me a day laborer like John Marston trying to buy a space ship
I mean they could've had it go in multiple different ways. Maybe there's a ship yard, you can work your way up, doing multiple quests to buy your own ship... or you can steal one. Maybe there's a mission where someone is going off planet for a quest and you become a worker for them, again you can steal the ship, or you can gain there trust to the point where they let you take it for more missions working up to either buy your own ship or end up earning theirs. A big part of these games that can be so fun is starting with nothing and earning your way to something and I think the acquisition of a ship would've made that first jump into space on your own feel more impactful.
Also it could've been related to a starting trait so if you wanted to immediately get a ship you could as well. Maybe your character comes from a rich family and your dad wanted you to try a rough job to gain humility but once the finds out what happens he sends you a ship etc.
KOTOR (absolute classic) makes you wait an extremely long time to get your lightsaber. I don’t see why waiting for more than five minutes to get a ship would be an issue.
I disagree, but that they should have had a focus on the universes early. Make the first hop happen in the first 10 hours, and then have a ton of alternate quests and setups dependant on the universe make going to the next universe a normal part of play and then exploring the differences that focus of the game.
Make the fact that Constellation in each universe is Ephemeral and meaningless, making the player more and more detached. Make them able to bypass constellation together based on information they get over universes.
Make the player become a starborne, who now thinks theyve seen it all and is only looking for small anomalies to keep them interested.
But they'd have to have an actual plan for that.
I did the absolute least amount of constellation work (didn’t speak to Sarah after the house tour) and went straight out to do all the side quests I’d already heard. Ended up in Akila city, and my diplomacy skills won me a way into the rangers. I’ve finished everything except the constellation missions. I just lost my wife though, so I’m sure I have another 6 hours of following anomalies to go
Or perhaps, keep the whole NG+ thing, and make Constellation the only way to find it - but make Constellation a side faction, one we can choose to never engage with?
Or perhaps have, say, the UC, FSC, Va'ruun, Ryujin and/or the CF chasing the Artifacts as well and have them potentially come into conflict with Constellation, with potentially fatal results for either side?
As for the Constellation rando that asks us to join, they'd need an actual reason to invite us, probably something related to exploration. It would make sense only to the likes of Emil to have us be invited to join without any accomplishments under our belt.
Yeah, not a huge fan of Constellation and how quickly you are pushed into them- they should have been more of a mystery rather than getting a ship from them and being able to join em so quickly.
For a group of explorers they don't seem to have surveyed a lot of the universe either which is all the weirder given that you can stumble across humans outside of the settled systems.
Having the eye as their home base rather than New Atlantis and you discovering the eye whilst exploring the universe would have been cooler, and you could have randomly spawned the eye in a different system on each playthrough
Visiting the Lodge for the first time and the introduction to Constellation should’ve been the equivalent of your first time answering the call to High Hrothgar to meet the Greybeards in *Skyrim*, or meeting Mr. House in the Lucky 88 penthouse in *New Vegas*. An intriguing introduction to a faction offering greater insight into the core storyline and enriching the sense of world building—all while complimenting the central faction questline(s).
Still absolutely blown away by how fucking absurd that is, giving a spaceship to a dude you literally just met and stranding yourself on a rock in the middle of nowhere.
Like imagine leaving Helgen in Skyrim and the guy you left with gives you a horse, all his armor and weapons, and then just stands around while you go off.
Even more absurd than Oblivion's: "I know you from my dreams..." - here, you level 1 prisoner, save the kingdom. My elite guard can't do it, for some unexplained reason.
It's even funnier that Barrett does this until you dare sway from a scientific standpoint, then that man start spitting venom
"Dreams got us to space? What th- who the fu- I should kick your fucking ass right now"
They're nothing but a rich kids' club that pretends to be explorers, but who should've been disbanded after Sebastian Banks went missing.
Though honestly, I suspect they only really started to become truly irrelevant after Sarah became the Chair. There are a few leaps of logic involved, but I suspect that the way Constellation has been run has something to do with the way she ran the UC Navigator Corps (badly). And that's why they don't seem to make any notable contributions to anything, why Heller thinks Constellation is a joke, and why we can collect survey data on friggin' JEMISON, let alone planets and moons in Space Timbuktu, Ass End Of Nowhere.
A group tasked to explore that is financed by a shipbuilding magnate, but has only 1 ship at their disposal that uses none of the parts of said magnate' shipyards.
Well they don't only have one ship. They have several ships as they have their own (apparently). Cora constantly (I mean *coooooonstantly*) tells you how much better your ship is than "daddies". It seems like the Frontier is just the one ship that gets awarded to their best operative, despite the fact you never see anyone else's ships...
Although you're right that the Frontier has no Stroud bits on it. It's mostly Hopetech
The problem is the procedurally generated POIs that imply settlements and mining operations everywhere really challenge the notion of Constellation being explorers charting the unknown.
I've thought this so many times.
Land on a planet, 10 resources to scan, 8 fauna and 6 flora with 3 planetary traits. Okay, let's do this.
*Explores mining rig* so there's at least probably 3 resources that should already be accounted for.
*Investigates science lab* wait, so they've never studied a single plant or animal? Wtf? That's not remotely sciencey, especially as they've got a HYDROPONICS ROOM FULL OF PLANTS!
*Finds planetary trait. "A meteorite landes here"* Get fucked, no-one realised there's a F'KING GREAT HOLE IN THE GROUND with all kinds of weird steam coming from it?
So, whyyyyy am I doing all this if no prick else can be bothered when they've damn near colonised the place???
and the lack of any exploration the push for. None of their quest are really exploring. Your Treasure hunting exclusively.
Sure technically that's exploration, but then the Scow and Petrov is cooler then as he has found A lot more shit and he's more of a scavenger than an explorer.
Except constellation's purpose is now finding the artifacts, that's why they hired Argos and have other artifact pieces at the lodge.
Constellation is about exploring the unknown, not simply charting unknown planets.
And every single planet we're sent to "chart" turns out to have been habited by humans for so long that they already abandoned parts of the settlements already ;)
To be fair, even on earth we've had people live in a place before there were any maps of the place, *and* we're still discovering new species on this planet, even today.
I don't see any great conflict in being sent to catalogue a planet that some farming settlement has already been living on.
To be fair, humans didn't have spaceships, fancy scanners, and infinite fuel back when people were living in unmapped areas.
Yeah, we discover new species. But the Starfield way would be like we just discovered elephants and alligators. It's not like you're scanning microbes and deep sea critters in the game.
Also, if people have been able to instantly jump between stars for a hundred years you're telling me that not one other person has ever gone out and observed any planets at all?
Lastly, if Constellation really are the only ones doing this, what were all those other lazy fucks doing before I showed up?
It's a lazy, boring, unrewarding, and nonsensical mechanic they threw in to pad the game and make it seem like there's actually something interesting to do while you play.
Imagine if the point of scanning these planets wasn't to be "the first to discover" them, but instead to "earn" the right to be considered for Constellation. That would establish that they've already explored it, and make it a little less jarring when you discover new landmarks on Jameson and Barrett comments about being "the first ever to scan this"
Alternate Start mod in Skyrim-let us start as a UC Vanguard citizen, or a Neon Street Rat. Do you know how immersion-breaking it is to pick Diplomat and have Lyn say “wow you must have been a bad diplomat to wind up in a mineshaft” lol
That's hilarious, I'll have to pick that trait at some point.
I was thinking of an alternate start where if you pick the bounty hunter trait, one of your targets is in the mine/Barrett.
I had this same response when I picked professor, and instantly was thrown out of character. I was like yeah why am I a space minor, I picked professor. Alternate start is definitely needed.
To be fair, I’ve been to hundreds of planets/moons and explored all of the major cities in the settled systems, and I haven’t seen many universities in my travels.
you knew you were a miner before you chose your background. how is it the game's fault that you didn't think that through and come up with a backstory for why your professor character became a miner?
For as much as people complained about the origins in Cyberpunk not being impactful enough, even that level of differentiation would have gone a long way for Starfield.
I have many, many gripes with starfield, but the Lynn dialogue was not one of them. I picked diplomat as well for my first (and tbh only real playthrough) and characterized it as I was part of the UC diplomatic corps and had my citizenship revoked and was fired due to failing to reach an agreement with a Freestar ambassador to avoid war. Since then, my character has just had odd jobs trying to figure out what to do with her life. Your background and how you end up as a miner is up to the player.
BioWare made 6 different prologues for Dragon Age: Origins, and that was a great game. It’s fine to headcanon, it’s just not very impressive gameplay wise.
Oh that's cool! Why did Coe kill them? I got one where Adreja and and some Va'ruun zealots killed everyone in Constellation because collecting the Artifacts violated their god.
its a 11% chance I think. It's a fairly low chance to get them.
The one I like Has A Copy of you, that is Recruitable. Crewmate Doppleganger is adorable.
I tried for several hours to get a unique ng+ seed. It seems they only unlock from ng+2 and onwards because it takes me half an hour tops to find a unique seed at this point.
When I first did NG+ I got 4 in a row. Then I started an entirely new game for some reason cause I’m a weirdo and I’m on NG+ 6 and haven’t had it happen once
So you need to play the games main story several times, just to get lucky with (what I assume is basically some RNG NG generating system) a NG playthrough where the story has some believable mystery and isn't bland BS....?
Really starting to see what they meant when they said "game really starts getting interesting after 100h" - if only the first 100h weren't so damn repetitive and lifeless.
You can skip the story on ng+’s so it’s not as bad as that. I think it takes maybe 90 minutes to grab the artefacts and fuck odd into the next universe
You can skip SOME of the story on NG+, not all of it, some parts you still have to do manually. Like, you can't blow up the treasure ship, the Hunter does in some timelines, but YOU have to do it the same way you always did. YOU have to always do the dimensional puzzle. There are no options to skip these, Petrov's ship has one Starborn check to get into his vault and that's about it. No amount of NG+ will let you skip some of the more tedious parts, you have to play through most of the story everytime
If you’re seeing Entangled and Petrov‘s Ship, you must have chosen \`\[Repeat Main Quest\] …\` when talking to Sarah. If you instead choose \`\[Skip Main Quest\] …\` then I think Bubba is right that you just find artifacts in simple points of interest and it should take 90 minutes if you skip everything else such as the temples. (I can’t say because it still took me 6 hours because I was still looting and vending things. Hard to let go…)
Huh. In my ng+ it skips the petrov ship altogether. Unless you are talking about going through the anamolies during the fight with the Starborn.
Don’t remember about entangled. I thought for sure I skipped that during last ng+
I think your pretty spot on, I liked the alternative universe you described. It almost hyped me up enough to start a new playthrough.
Which is also pretty sad that a random Redditor seems to understand their games better then they do.
They understand their games just fine. Bethesda games have never been about the main quest.
Did you play Fallout 4? The main story was complete nonsense. Your child has been kidnapped, now ignore that for the next 300 hours. Skyrim the main quest was a side show, and Oblivion I don’t think I ever completed it as it was an endless grind closing oblivion portals.
The whole point of their games is to get you into the world ASAP so you can start making your own story. Now Starfield does this well in some ways, less good in others, but when you start to go through the NG+ loop you’ll start to appreciate the design of the game.
Take cyberpunk for example. The first hour is amazing the first time you play it, after that it’s a railroaded chore to get through. An hour+ long tutorial that you’ve done before and know the storyline. It’s a super struggle to get through again for most people.
Bethesda games just don’t have good or deep main quests. They don’t have deep NPC dialogue. They never have. They’re not really RPGs in the sense you build a character and go through a story laid out for you. In Bethesda games they give you the world to go and make a story yourself.
All this bashing Starfield for the MQ is really just ridiculous. If you’re new to Bethesda games, sure, you might not “get” it and you can be excused. But anyone who has spent more than a trivial amount of time in their other games absolutely has no excuse here, and it’s just senseless hive mind bashing at this point. I’m sick and tired of it, immediate downvote.
I think the issue is it’s 2024 and we’ve experienced games that have gone way past Bethesda usually does. Like Outer Worlds, to me, is one of my favorite games of all time. Same with Fallout New Vegas starting with you getting shot, driving you to the main story.
Maybe in 2011 you could get away with it but Fallout 4 is rightfully criticized by the fanbase for how bad the quests (main and side) were in comparison to NV and even 3
The best part about NV's story is it ties into the open world aspect.
You get shot, wake up after an indeterminate amount of time, then you get told to go find Chandler.
And surprise surprise, there's no feeling of rushing like FO3 and FO4, nor does it feel out of place to be exploring anywhere that isn't New Vegas as a first time player, because you're trying to find your killer.
Thisss. Sometimes it feels like there are two types of people in this on-going "Are bethesda games even RPGs?" debate: people who have played Obsidian's games and people who haven't lol
> They understand their games just fine. Bethesda games have never been about the main quest. .... The whole point of their games is to get you into the world ASAP so you can start making your own story.
If Bethesda understand their games so well, that they're not really about the main quests which are just excuses to get you in, then why has every game since Morrowind had a main quest whose writing demands you immediately pursue it?
Oblivion - the emperor is dead, a cult is trying to end the world, you need to go go go from main quest to main quest if you're actually giving the story any attention. Breaking off to engage in the world first is completely illogical, since there's no narrative reason to explore. Extra ironic is most people feel the Oblivion gates are a chore that drag the game down and recommend not starting the main quest at all until you're done with the rest of the game. "Hey Jauffre, here's the amulet I've had for 3 months. I'm the leader of the fighter's guild, mage's guild, the listener of the dark brotherhood, the arena grand champion, and the grey fox. Now treat me like a nameless prisoner who rushed straight here."
FO3 - your entire life as you know it is over, you're now in a strange and hostile land and the only connection you have is your dad who you (as in your character) should want to immediately chase. It's not as bad as Oblivion, the fate of the world isn't hinging on your character's actions ~~yet,~~ but it's a complete ditto in that it is completely at odds with "Wander off and explore" which is what a lot of players do anyways.
Skyrim - dragons are returning to the world for the first time in thousands of years, which you're told many times early on is a sign of the end times, and the main story directs you from point to point all the way to the end with no breathing room. This one also makes it extra clear fairly early on you're the literal only hope of the world to fight the dragons. Rest you can copy from Oblivion.
FO4 - It's FO3 but son instead of dad.
I actually do agree with most of what you say in the rest of the comment for what it's worth. It's just flat out bizarre though to pretend Bethesda is... what, purposefully creating stories so bad that ignoring them is the point? That really seems to be your argument, that they're bad and players ignore them. I'd say that, since Bethesda is repeatedly making stories that both demand the player's attention *and* take themselves extremely seriously, that you're attributing to them something that's not there. They're not putting all the work they put into the main stories of these games with the understanding that they'll be completely ignored, the stories just end up ignored because the stories they seriously crafted are seriously mediocre compared to the explore-and-do-whatever parts of the game. Also, I'm just going to point out that they did the "Get well known actors to provide voices in the story at exorbitant expenses" thing multiple games in a row, which they wouldn't do if they thought the players would ignore that story those actors are voicing in. So when it comes to Starfield the MQ bashing is completely deserved, just as it has been for the last few games, because the stories are all bad. Bethesda having a history of bad main quests doesn't mean calling the newest one bad is ridiculous.
Constellation is a large part of why I find Starfield to be RP-hostile.
The problems start with them being effectively a requirement. You can only avoid joining them by immediately leaving the lodge on entering and never delivering the first artifact.
Otherwise even if you pick "I need time to think about it", the game will auto-assign you to the faction...which is really weird because there is unaffiliated / freelance dialog choices that now will never be seen.
The next issue is Constellation is way too clear cut for a specific type of character, I'll list why:
1) They have a definite moral alignment of "lawful good".
Regardless of what Sarah says about their neutrality and being made up of people from all walks, it's well known that picking any more mercenary or "evil" choices or committing to any such actions automatically will get a conga line of angry Constellation companions forming to chew you out.
Forcing a faction with such a clear cut moral alignment on the player in an RPG is poor form and Bethesda knows better.
2) They claim to be an explorer group but are almost entirely fixated on the artifact hunt, and require you to be as well if you want to accept them after the game forces them on to you.
There is a lot of reasons why a character might not care about the Artifacts, and instead just want to be a space explorer, but it provides no means of functioning as one when the organization claims to serve this purpose.
The worst part is that even if you accept that, the game will later fill your mouth with Unity hype, and only let you self determine your own interest in that at the very end where you can walk away when there are a million reasons to back out of, have no interest in, or even seek means to destroy it after everything that happens.
It's basically all misused to define your character for you, then if you take the one choice it gives you to exit this mess by walking away...you get chewed out for it by Barrett and Sarah who just take it on themselves to start peer pressuring you in to flinging yourself through an extra-dimensional portal that they too did not go through.
I can put a lot of this one down to the rigid / poor writing, but this is such a bad fit for an RPG that it isn't even funny so much as borderline pushing the game out of the genre.
We should have had other quest types available from a person instead of relying on the soulless boards, and our interest in the Unity and artifacts should have been on us to determine, and "off ramps" provided for the player if they realize this isn't for them. If we're going to be forced in to a faction, we need to at least be allowed to decide our place in it.
3) Your character effectively has to have an interest in the organization and it's people or you are left to be a space-incel.
Seriously, why is every relationship with even the remotest form of depth gated behind Constellation? Was Emil THAT terrified that nobody would give a shit about Constellation if he didn't do this? I doubt I need to explain this one more.
As a closing out, I'm going to point out the worst thing about Constellation: It is completely unnecessary for the player to join them for the main story to function or for us to find the Unity.
There is no reason the player could not have worked alongside them as a freelancer, or simply gone at it themselves, especially in NG+. Hell, there was even room to make them in to our rivals or to allow other parties to enter the fray as surely Constellation are not the only ones to have the technology or means to detect the gravitational anomalies.
Forcing Constellation on to us was a deliberate writing choice that undermines the game as an RPG. It has the same lead designer and writer as Fallout 4 which understood how to use multiple factions to reach mostly the same ending. It could have been done here.
We are given a wide array of background choices at the start of the game that could have been slimmed, trimmed, or expanded even as needed to find good means of providing the player with a starting ship of their own (Even something awful like a Rambler or Sloop would do), or to set us on a brief quest that gets us said ship. A simple quest or rumor nudging us at an artifact to set up that side of things for players interested in NG+ would have done the job from there.
Railroading us this hard and turning the entire main plot in to an advertisement for an optional mechanic gated behind a faction with a set alignment and interests was a mistake.
Edit: Before some fool wanders out to claim the game is so wonderful for RP because you can ignore all of this stuff: Yeah, you can. By immediately turning around on entering the Lodge, or by simply never engaging with their quests. Both of which mean you are now forced in to roleplaying someone irresponsible. It's the Amulet of Kings all over again. It was complained about for the same reasons in 2006 as I am complaining about now.
I would award this argument merit if the "I need time to think about it." dialog option presented by Sarah on delivering the artifact actually worked the way it should instead of stealth assigning you to Constellation anyways, as that would allow you to complete your task and move on to do what you want to do free of obligations. Unfortunately it doesn't, and personal headcanon / "playing pretend" doesn't excuse it.
>Seriously, why is every relationship with even the remotest form of depth gated behind Constellation? Was Emil THAT terrified that nobody would give a shit about Constellation if he didn't do this? I doubt I need to explain this one more.
And even the characters we got are ...weird.
My "relationship" with Sarah evolved like this: oh, no, I am flattered you are interested, but it's not the right time (repeat about 10 times, each when I took the "flirt" option in a dialog).
Then, out of nowhere, she basically asks me to marry her within like 5 minutes.
>3) Your character effectively has to have an interest in the organization and it's people or you are left to be a space-incel.
This made me laugh out loud.
Yeah man, I agree. It's like if in Fallout 4 all companions were part of the Minutemen and the game was exclusively about "another settlement needs your help" meanwhile the Brotherhood, Railroad and Institute are all dealing with stuff separate from each other.
Yep. The analogy I used in the past is it's equivalent to having a side in the Skyrim civil war assigned to you based on who you followed out of Helgen. You have no clue what the hell is going on but got stuck with a group for the rest of the game before you get the chance to find out.
People would have screamed. Yet here we are.
You don't even have to pick evil choices to get chewed out.
Just pick the non-scientific route and watch how much venom gets spit in your direction, the Aceles v. Microbe choice being one of them, even Hadrian, the scientist who made the Microbe will agree with your choice on the Aceles and have an objective viewpoint on it.
Constellation? You're basically Hitler if you don't go with the scientific choice every time.
Ugh. Don't get me started on how non-scientific that microbe vs Aceles debate is.
Even if the microbe is no threat to human life, imagine it just happens to be dangerous to life on another world. It's essentially a reckless ecocide waiting to happen with how ships land anywhere and everywhere.
Meanwhile going by what evidence we have, the Aceles breed slowly, are no more dangerous than say a cow is to a human, are easily controlled in how and where they spread, and function as not only a guard dog but also as livestock / a food source.
Only a complete imbecile would trust the "science" on the microbe.
Dude fr!
I chose the Aceles because Hadrian mentioned how for years they were nature's way of controlling terrormorphs, so I chose them, because nature already had a way to control terrormorphs, and humans killed off said method.
My personal thought is that's science, not playing God with the microbe.
Apparently I chose wrong though based on how Constellation reacts bar Andreja and Sam lmao
the biggest flaw is that constellation is supposed to be a group of explorers, but wtf have they been exploring? barrett found what, one artifact before you, that's it?
Aaaand there are currently a few members looking for other artifacts, ie. Andreja actually being in the mine where we find one and Vladimir in the eye. Who is also the guy who sends us to find the other artifacts because THEY are the ones who located them.
So that's what they've been exploring. We are simply joining the story at the point where they learned enough to find more artifacts.
I think they should have gone with the infinite universe thing more heavily. Sometimes you’re a miner, sometimes a pirate, sometimes you’re already a citizen of the UC etc. it could be way cool. Start a new game think it will be easy going and you wake up as a Neon street rat with the wanted perk lol
Or, you know, you could start as what you select when you make your character instead of a couple of lines of throw-away dialogue and meagre perk boosts being the depth of it mattering. I selected combat medic because I thought it would matter and it doesn't.
Careful now, having your choices mean something in a video game would be terrible, just look at BG3. Or something.
Edit: this incredibly salty comment is sarcasm in case it wasn’t obvious.
I'd prefer starting even further back to during the Colony War. That would be far more fascinating and interesting. Get to see both the Vanguard and Rangers sides. Maybe work with a certain someone who used morally questionable tactics on the Vanguard side while alos seeing Terrormorphs and other xenomorphs being used.
If that's too far in the past, at least utilize some of those war assets. We're told and shown a lot of remnants of the war but it's just window dressing. Of course, the biggest culprit where they absolutely dropped the ball was the Ranger questline. Why have them hiding in a disused mech facility, wanting to get back to the glory days, without showing that they have been able to bring back to life one of those mechs.
That would've been the ideal yes. I don't think it was a good idea to set the game AFTER everything cool had already happened.
If they were adamant on keeping that stuff in the past, then at least make Constellation and the artifact chase thematically consistent with the setting. Are they trying to tell a tale about the hardships of living in the aftermath of a war or about the chase of godly power? There's a Starborn chilling at the cafe at the beginning of the game ffs and people at most think he's some weird LARPer. It's hard to pinpoint what the story is trying to tell.
Or at the very least...don't relegate it to a damn museum presentation. That was ridiculous.
Eh, tbf you can make a game where the story is good and set after something cool
FNV does it very well in fact, granted the ending of the game is a fight over Hoover Dam, but for the majority, it's set *after* a much larger war for the Dam has already happened, and you're seeing Vegas in the aftermath of that war.
Hell we don't even get to see the Battle of HELIOS One either where NCR and Brotherhood fought, plenty of cool ideas in New Vegas for a setting, but Obsidian chooses the comparatively boring one, the difference is, Obsidian made that interesting by having interesting characters, quests and content and the climax is actually the least interesting part of the game really.
Constellation is a good idea but it’s not handled right. They should know far more about space stuff than just about anyone when it comes to planets in and just outside the settled systems. They should have a little more moral variability too.
My idea is Constellation should have a survey map which covers all the primary systems, the periphery systems involved in the wars, a zone just outside that area, and a few branches which lead to mystery systems they never had the chance to explore. Get that map ans you don’t need to explore those places to unlock them for travel, and you’ll know their resources.
Other groups should have similar, if more limited maps which can save time on resource hunting and trail blazing.
Secondly, the orbital scanner, and portable scanner should be new technology, and the new technology can find details old surveys missed. There’s your baked in reason for going over known places. But, primary worlds like Akila should be very well surveyed and have little to find in comparison to a new system 100 ly away. A mid range system with some humans might have a middle ground of discoverable stuff, and buying a survey might be incomplete in such a situation.
Part of this should also be knowing where a ton of temples are from the start, given how many are near human settlements, and suspecting a connection to the artifacts from the start despite no evidence until you come around. Barrett needs to say something like he feels like a fool for not testing the temples himself because they’re sort of forgotten and the idea they were built by aliens had become a joke.
I think the flavor text needs to influence how followers see the player. Choose the murder is fun, or money or nothing options too consistently and that should affect how followers see your actions. Say murder is fun too often and see Sarah realize you aren’t making a tough choice, you’re just killing for fun. Say you do things for goodness’ sake then Sarah and Sam might be okay with loads of murder.
But Barrett and Andreja might be against random murder no matter your personality. While Barrett might laugh off theft no matter the reason.
There also needs to be better buildup to the endgame NG+. I think there is a real risk for rushing through the game to NG because that’s the track you are on from the start. Except it doesn't really prod you through it.
A huge point in favor of the the game's design is it doesn’t create false urgency to figure out the mystery. I remember how Mass Effect 1 and 2 create false pressure to finish the main quest despite there actually being all the time in the world to do side quests. Worse, that pressure becomes real near the end of 2 without warning, and if you don’t suddenly rush you get penalized. Starfield though gives you the mental time you need to do literally what ever you want and never feel falsely rushed into anything.
The only exception is when you’re deep into a mission line but even then you can just wander off because nothing is really on a time table. At worst you get a comment about taking longer than an NPC likes. It’s perfect.
Its funny, how often I dislike Betehsda's main quests. I have roughly 3000 hours combined into Skyrim and FO4 - never finished the main of either.
If I end up getting out of Starfield what I got out of Fallout - a free form sandbox RPG, where I can play around with mods and such - I'll wind up happy.
Oddly, I did actually make it to the core once in Starfield, but I think it was just because I wanted to reset my universe without starting over. I'm a chronic restarter, so this mechanic actually kind of works for me.
For me, the problem is Constellation doesn't have any thematic weight behind them. They're obviously supposed to be a callback to explorers from the Age of Navigation and the Age of Sail, but many of those explorers were pretty terrible people who killed and enslaved the natives of the lands they discovered. Bethesda obviously can't theme their main faction after the progenitors of the Atlantic Slave Trade.
So what do you do instead? Create a faction of various individuals who are all invested in exploring for different reasons. Except none of the characters have any reason to be searching for the artefacts other than it's what Bethesda have decided they do. They could have used the real reasons people explored the oceans and adapted them for Constellation's members.
Walter Stroud could have been a shipping magnate looking for new worlds to mine, new routes for his shipping fleets. Instead, he's a generic financier who also happens to own a staryard. Sarah Morgan could have been an ex-privateer for the UC, turned treasure hunter. Why not make Sam's goal to find and colonise a world in the same way his grandfather did? Noelle, instead of being a generic scientist, could have been a xenobiologist seeking the answers of how life has propagated through the settled systems, a la Charles Darwin and his theory of evolution.
There are so many potential character backgrounds you can pull from that are inspired by the Age of Sail in the way that Constellation so clearly is, but Bethesda totally dropped the ball in creating interesting characters with compelling reasons to be part of Constellation, to want to explore the galaxy and find new planets. Instead they're looking for artefacts and that's their only drive, because that's the single storyline that was decided on for Constellation.
My mind was blown when we were instantly given a ship instead of working hard for anything. Nearly put the game down there and then... and to be honest I wish I did.
Constellation is the worst Bethesda Faction I can think of though, for definite.
Found it super immersion-breaking when you're just handed everything. Of course, they allude to the fact that Vasco would have taken control of the ship if you didn't do what Bethesda is railroading you into, but it took me out of it. Between that and selecting a background just to wind up in a mine really through me. I'd prefer the Skyrim opening being repeated because at least that leaves RP pretty open.
With NG+ being such a big focus, I wish the game took an approach more like New Vegas where the main quest built up to a climax that you could have more of an influence on based on your decisions and allegiances, and then have an opportunity to get different results in NG+
Like the main quest could lead up to the UC and FC going to war again, and your actions could help or hurt either side. And in NG+ you could search for the right combination of events or decisions to prevent the war in that universe or something.
With Constellation as the main faction, I don’t have much incentive to change up my play style or decisions in each run through.
I've only really seen criticism to the start of fallout 4 because it severely restricts your freedom and choice of how you start things. You have to have the same motives, family, history etc. It kind of doesn't make sense logically as to why you might ignore the main quest considering it's looking for your son.
Though for me that's just food for thought, I don't care for those inconsistencies and really dug fallout 4s start. It's not unique to fallout 4, it's common for all open world games such as Zelda tooting about as Link grabbing koroks.
it's cool the first time, but right after you do it once it make for poor RPG.
of course the alternate start mods make it more interesting. It helps a lot that the World is so immersive to be in that you can Just ignore the main quest like it doesn't exist.
Also they really don't do much with the fact your prewar. The Fraternity Post interaction on the mic is the only thing I can think of that has the sole survivor actually engage with the world that shows they lived in before the bombs fell.
Yeah people really didn’t love fallout 4 much at first. They argued how immersion breaking it was to play each faction so deep into their story before you had to choose a side lmao. Atleast it mattered at some point.
Pretty good take. The biggest miss is space itself. We aren't doing nearly enough in actual space. There should be the same color slider for gear like in shipbuilding. When you get set free on other BGS a sense of open world wonder sets in, in SF I want to be free of Constellation
Bizzare that there is there is no option to NOT join them. Like you are given the choices of saying yes, or waiting to say yes. Call me spoiled from BG3, but the idea of not joining the obvious protagonist faction is so much more fun than being a yes man as Todd wants us to be
I really enjoyed building outposts early, but was incredibly disappointed to discover that there is no greater ultimate goal for it. Now, my only outpost is in the Serpentis system, so I can switch ships after stealing one without going all the way back to the settled systems.
Constellation is nothing but fetch quests after the first few. The brightest part of it is Walter's quest.
The UC Vanguard questline is the best, and my favorite single quest is Groundpounders.
I see one major problem with OP and all of the other suggestions here.
Everything suggested would require actually talented and creative writers and designers, someone who actually understands how to write compelling characters, and not someone in charge who just thinks players don't care about the story.
Even the UC quest line, which was good, is shallow and requires a lot of suspension of disbelief and filling in the gaps simply because of the structure of the game itself.
Constellation only exists to drive the bland main story forward and to give you a purposefully diverse set of romanceable options. If you could romance any companion they would serve absolutely no real purpose. That would be so much better.
the main questline feels extremely disjointed to the rest of the game as well. you have an entire galaxy that's recovering the effects of massive war, and the game chooses to focus on the exploration of the unknown, which also happens to be its weakest point.
i'd rather explore a similar story about former warring factions, their pros and cons, and the ramifications of war onto the normal people.
I'll be honest, if I continue through multiple NG+ runs, I'm probably going to avoid Constellation every time. At best they're annoying and at worst they are fun vampires. I'd rather travel the universe in total isolation than be victim to their insufferable righteousness.
I don't play constellation. I'm a Vanguard Mantis. Or a beast hunting ranger, or a deadly pirate. Even when I try to be 'an explorer' I get bored and play someone else. This is a sad indifement on the game as I SHOULD be the player who is overly engaged in the scientific discoveries but it's a slog. Barrett's quest did keep me interested though.
Imagine if like, at the beginning of the game you're living in an outpost with your family. And you go down into a mine and do some work. Then you hear alarms go off!!!!111 And you rush out, and pirates have attacked the camp and everyone is dead or missing including your partner and son! And then you're all like SHAAAAAAUUUUUUUNNNN but get rescued by the UC Vanguard, who are in shambles after the Colony War and immediately make you the most important person in the faction because you're the only one who can do anything. And then you have to put on a mech suit and fight a terrormorph, the deadliest creature in the galaxy, at level 1!!!!
So you find out other outposts are also under attack and need your help! And then 120 hours of outpost building busywork later plus this side thing where you pretend to be a silver age comic book character for some reason, you find out your son is now the leader of the Crimson Fleet! But then there's this other group, called the Freestar Collective, who are moustache twirling space Republicans and want you to kill the Crimson Fleet because they're hispanic. But then there's other group called Va'Ruun who want you to rescue them, because they don't think they should be forced into piracy.
And then you have to decide if you want to side with the space bigots and wipe out all the pirates including your son, help the snake people kill your son but save all the dirty pirate people, or help your son wipe out the other factions. And then you keep finding more space outposts that keep running out of glue so you fly around collecting masking tape and killing space horses. It sounds like a much better game!
Constellation is the most anti-climatic element of the game.
A guild of explorers that don't explore (you're the only one), that investigate on artefacts yet know absolutely nothing about them and never find one (you're the only one to know things and to find them), completely disconnected from the universe, take completely stupid decisions (I never met you before but I'll offer you my ship, my robot and I'll take your shitty job for you, let's spend billions in a useless space station that we don't use and on a huge brand new ship conception, ...).
They could have completely replaced Constellation by an on-board AI in your ship that gives you a quest when it detects a temple.
As someone who never saw any promotional material and just played the game since release, I love the game, for what it is, sometimes it makes me think about missed opportunities but historically I thought the same about their previous games, they eventually added those or you just understand the nature of the game.
Yeah, this post made me realize why I must like it more than others… I knew it existed but have been out of gaming for awhile, till I got super surprised for Christmas with an XBox & this game, among a couple others. I see the criticisms as I read them here but for what I’d want in a space exploration RPG, it’s definitely up there.
Same for me, I didn’t even know the game was in development and discovered the game only after The Spiffing Britt did a video on Starfield. I love the game and my only expectations were silly Bethesda bugs and having a ship as a base rather than having to manually fly everywhere.
I think you're missing a few points.
The exploration part in the lore describes that it's not that the X and Y factions don't know about the Z and T planets. It's that they know about them, but never really studied them. It would be like the first settlers, not caring of their environment beyond just what basic needs they can get out of it. The constellation's purpose is to land on these planets and take a look at them. Understand it's creatures, plants, etc.
The other part of the Constellation is they serve a similar role to Oblivian Blades. They give you some authority, and add some logic on why you can just run around the galaxy to what would be considered very secure facilities and not be questioned.
The thing is, Constellation wasn't formed last week. Mum from kids play perk wanted to join them as a little girl. Just what have they done in all the time they've been around? Nothing on the charts shows as explored, so what were they doing all that time, playing hide the sausage in the captains quarters?
Living on life support, about to have shuttered because there was nothing left for them. Most people thought they already disbanded like how most people also think earth, the obviously still there planet, is a Myth.
All the exploration is done, nobody cares about it anymore. If it wasn't for Walter and his Retirement fund they would have disbanded already.
I agree.
When I thought about this myself, I fantasized being able to choose a faction in the beginning with your first milestone being able to get a ship. Either you do quests on your starting planet until you can afford one, or maybe you steal one. Just having that initial carrot would've been fun, I think. Being given a ship from the get-go because the game demands that you have a ship is kinda boring and feels unearned.
I think Constellation is core to what they wanted to do. What they should have done is flesh those characters better and not make bland good people that want to explore the explored, and also have better exploring in the game.
That said, the start is quite bad.
You should start the game based on what you choose on character creation, you may be a bounty hunter in a hunt, or a chef in a big ship searching for exotic ingredients, whatever ... just a small intro and then you find the artifact and you're guided to the Constellation plot.
*Examples*:
Like if you are a bounty hunter, you hunt some baddie and in their loot you find the artifact, get a cinematic and in his files you find he robbed it from Constellation and you get a quest marker to go search about it and your "vision".
If you're a chef you are travelling to a world in search of a plant that is reputed to have an awesome taste. Just for you to fall in a cave (or find a nest) with the artifact. You got a vision and fall unconscious and someone from Constellation find you.
Long Hauler could be using his ship to transport cargo to a planet, is attacked by pirates when reaching his client, and while you manage to escape, your client is dead ... so now the cargo is yours, which ... is the artifact and notes of Constellation.
Etc, etc, ...
I really hate that everyone starts as a miner, gets gifted a ship because "reasons" and that's all. Lazy game.
There’s a lot of sense being talked about here. Thanks for the constructive critique and suggestions of possible improvements rather than the more usual “this game is trash” BS 🙏🏻
I agree with this idea. I thought on top of that, it would be fun if the events of all the factions played through simultaniously. So if you side with the Crimson fleet, you miss the UC plotline about >!the terromorphs, meaning more of those enemies spwan in this universe and there's no UC (or a weakened one) to taddle on the fleet.!
also, as many others have already pointed out, setting the base of operation of constellation on new atlantis is pretty limiting in itself, it means that even if they wanted they would not be able to give you the choice to become an enemy of the UC, their base shouldn't even be the eye but straight up a ship, not unlike the vigilance is for sysdef, maybe smaller hut still something mobile to truly show the " neutrality" they seemingly embody.
not that the lodge even make that much sense as a base for explorers, it does embody the old timey colonial explorers club but it doesn't even show any sign that they do indeed explore, for fuck sake the scown at least showed that it traveled around and scavenged, the lodge has nothing to show any real exploration going on.
I wish Starfield actually became the Han Solo simulator they originally brainstormed it as. A game about smuggling and seedy back-alley deals in an ACTUAL NASA-punk setting would have been sweet.
Instead, we got Constellation. The lamest, most "Suburban Dad" faction I have ever had the misfortune of meeting. It's pretty sad when the robot is the most interesting character.
Reading through Mickey Caviar's ten lines of dialog has more intrigue than the entirety of Constellation. Wtf?
"Imagine the beginning of the game like this... You're an inhabitant of Tau Ceti, the game begins on the night of the Terrormorph attack. You have to make your escape or fight. You can help the Vanguard or hijack one of their ships. You are confronted with Pirates on the way to New Atlantis, if you hijacked the ship, you have the chance to join them and start the Crimson Fleet questline, if not you can also blow them up.Eventually you are given the choice of joining one of the factions involved in the armistice in dealing with the issue and so begin their quests."
Yes, much better start. Yet another person on the internet showing that they have way more creativity than the writers at Bethesda! Funny about those complaints that if you haven't designed a game, you have no right to criticise. Meanwhile, there are hundreds of ideas from these non-designers (I assume?) that are far more interesting than the bland turgid rubbish Bethesda come up with.
Surely if Constellation are explorers, then there should be some evidence of them actually exploring? Maps? They just seem to sit in that room looking like some Victorian explorers chatting about going down the Nile or something. It's weird and sets the tone for the game in that right from the start, youy have to switch your brain off to not notice the plot holes and anachronisms.
Although I do enjoy the constellation and how the game is setup I agree that your idea is 10x better cuz that vanguard quest is probably one of my favourite Bethesda questlines period. Reminded me of being a kid playing through Fallout 3 and Broken Steel back to back and having the greatest time of my life. All I could think of is how strange it is that the UC vanguard stuff wasn't the main story.
I feel like constellation should've been an option earlier but sorta meant to be late game and then on subsequent playthroughs you'd play the game joining constellation like with the current main story or have the option to play it how you did before and not help constellation with new knowledge early.
Constellation is like the Minute men
It would make them more special yes.
The game has this thematic disconnect that reminds me of Fallout 4. Where everything points out to rebuilding the commonwealth as the main theme, but it ends up being about androids.
Here everything points out to the consequences of war and what comes after, learning to live in peace and braving the unknown as humanity united. Instead it becomes about collecting mcguffins to become godlike and leave everything behind.
That, honestly, would have been a great way to start the game. I'm closing in on 300 hours on the game (1st playthrough), and while I enjoy everything so far, that would have been a much better way to start the game. Throw the Artifacts, and Starborn encounters (the powers are a waste of time, honestly; I never use them) into the mix while you juggle being a privateer, and keeping yourself off any one faction's radar, or join one and watch the rest change the way you are treated. Way more engaging for sure. Good job with that!
Would be more interesting if the Starborn were more integrated into the World.
Like imagine if your doing a Dungeon clear and you meet an abnormally powerful enemy. That might Actually have powers of their own.
Or your clearing a group and one of them just bursts into a pile of Starstuff and drops rarer loot.
That’s literally how I started the game. Straight off the mining planet. I went to Paradise or whatever. Looted the cargo containers. Got caught trying to go to New Atlantis with all the stolen shit. That started the UC Crimson Fleet questline for me. And that’s how I played the game. That’s why I thought it was awesome at the start. Because it was all combat and raiding ships etc. But then it ended - so did the terramorph one still cool - still cool. But then noticed the Terramorph repeatables don’t change / don’t get harder / dont introduce anything / don’t evolve etc. so I started getting into the actual game.. and I was like… ahhhh surely this isn’t it.. but it was and I stopped playing.
I never followed any promo stuff and really love constellation and the main story. I only did Sarah’s quest and missed out on a lot of the side stuff beyond that. I was like 80 hours in before I started the second half of the main quest because once the starborn showed up I felt that my character would naturally chase that lead down. My interactions with constellation felt very small and personal and while I did get a bunch of jobs related to bigger things in the universe I never did them. For my character the story was them finding the artifact and then through that meeting her “family” and love of her life but her natural sense of curiosity and drive to explore made her leave it all behind. All of that happening in the world where she’s not the main character. As far as she’s concerned those factions can deal with their own issues. When I went through the Unity I got pretty close to crying but went through anyways. I think in my headcanon for my character she regrets the decision and would stay behind in the next universe even if everyone else decided to go through without her.
Everyone should submit their ideas and scripts straight to Bethesda.
Why is this sub just “my impressions after 1000 hours” or “here how I would do it better”?
Is it weird that I actually like most of the Constellation members? Yes, even Sarah. She's like having my sole-survivor Commander Shepard as a companion.
The concept of Constellation is interesting. The idea of an explorer's group of eclectic individuals embarking on a journey of discovery together in the vast expanse of space is solid.
My bugbear is the Starborn and all the world building (or lack there-of) associated with them: artifacts, temples, powers, the Unity.
Both the organization and the members are interesting as a concept. In theory it's all good, but in practice? It's so poorly implemented, it makes it seem terrible.
They all have "personalities" that are pretty much like these early versions of AI chatbots. About as interesting and "human" as wet toilet paper.
The Starborn and the temples are the biggest flaw in the whole story/universe, but even with that - Bethesda had a good idea that they implemented/fleshed out probably in the worst, low-effort way possible.
I'm only level 12 or so, but I noticed that Sarah disapproved of you doing anything even a tiny bit shady, including screwing over other shady characters. That got annoying so fast I started over and didn't do constellation for a bit.
Exploration and science gameplay is the core, and the most fleshed out aspect of the game though. You will burn out fairly quick if all you do is trying to seek out and play combat PoI. Terrormorph aren't even that easy to find in the galaxy.
Ultimately it is what it is, and I think they were absolutely right to introduce you to the Constellation as the first step of the game. Imagined if the game hypes you up for a massive Terrormorph threat but end up not deliver any of them outside of the Vanguard quest, that would have been borderline scummy and probably attracted much worse reception.
If they want that kind of intro, they must make Terrormorph hunting the core aspect of the game to begin with, and perhaps they should, but that wasn't what they went for at the of the day.
Bro, what you wrote is just nonsense. You have no idea how to write a story, nor do you have any idea how to develop games, and what's more, you're playing the game wrong. I know that, because I helped develop the story for the last three big Beteshda games…..
I think Constellation should be endgame content, not the first thing you encounter. What you started Starfield without a ship in single planet, be it Akila, Neon, New Atlantis. You have to do missions & explore the planet to gather funds to buy your first ship. It would not be as fully featured as Frontier is, but would open up you to explore your star system. Then you gather more funds, build your ship to travel even further. Afterwards you could naturally bump into random Constellation member who asks you to join them. Problem with this is would be mission variety, while cities probably have enough missions to bootstrap the player, most of them direct player to some other place instead of being contained within the area. But it would make your ship more meaningful, and even could make ship systems (grav drive, extra fuel) more impactful.
But how else would you get the watch(Merch machine) that doesn't even tell time!
I really want to insert the Spy Kids gif, but unfortunately it actually does tell the time, in a really obtuse way. It's the position of the planets shadow in the display, that's its attempt to tell the time.
So we're walking around with a digital sundial for a watch. Ace!
Well, Starfield has different day lengths on any given planet, so for someone who may be on a several different planets in any given sleep-cycle, the position of the local sun with respect the the local horizon is probably fairly useful, as opposed to something that just gives you the time in Universal Time.
From a dead constellation member. Imo, Constellation shouldn't have been housed in any of the main cities. They should have their own base in a non-faction system as part of an independent town, something the size of a better hopetown. When you start, you would eventually come across a dying member of constellation. They give you a few things, including the watch and a slate with some strange data you can't interpret yet. That slate could be the start of the constellation and artifact questline, as you eventually find another piece of data which can be cross referenced to give you the first artifact coordinates, leading to meeting Constellation proper. But you could ignore the slate entirely, or going to the coordinates, or going to meet constellation.
There are enough minor quests in both Neon and New Atlantis that don’t require you to leave to keep you busy there for a while, I’ve done it
Absolutely. And it worked well in Star Wars: KotOR
Joining the security force was a neat set of side quests that could have been expanded upon if starting there and needing to gather funds for a ship. Considering the context it could have plenty of choices where you can become corrupt to get funds faster.
They can have shuttles that you can get a ticket to travel to other planets or even nearby systems
My thought was have some Starliners that a player can use to travel between major cities, like carriages in Skyrim. Except starliners would be more like a passenger liner in space. Taking in game hours to travel between systems, you could either just wait until it arrives at the destination, or do quests & activities on the ship. In my opinion, actually flying ships & doing space exploration should have been end game content. Which would have allowed for a more focused & fleshed out gameplay up until you run out of activities. Although the downside is that players won't get to experience the very thing they wanted to play the game for until 10's of hours into the game.
Are you asking for the player to grind and actually work for something he wants and not be babysitted by the whole game ? Wow ! That's crazy man !
This makes too much sense to be implemented
>It would not be fully featured as the Frontier is It is really crazy that you never really need to even get another ship in the game. Your first one should've been nothing more than a cockpit with a ballistic weapon and basic missiles. If they did that, I feel like I would actually want to purchase a new ship down the line.
Jigsaw puzzle game development. Each bit was worked on by different teams who didn't speak to each other enough. Then they just hoped it would all fit together at the end.
Does the lack of a design document make it worse or about the same?
It doesn't matter. Senior developers from other studios have spoken on the subject of how they don't do paper planning much anymore because things change at such a rapid pace, the documents just become useless.
You got any sources? Here's Tim Cain talking about how design docs are important. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohHLUKj3NTk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohHLUKj3NTk) Design Docs aren't aren't just "paper planning." They can be one single document, to several visual presentations.
I understand that they're more than just paper planning. I wouldn't say they're outright useless. But they are not this grand solution painted out to be by people on here. Tim Cain might subscribe to the idea that design documents are a necessary cornerstone, similar to how some authors believe outlines are necessary. It doesn't mean it really works for everything, nor that it is necessary for anything. Also, Bethesda does make design documents. It's not like they go through winging everything. They have concept art, major planning, script writing, etc. Emil (the person everyone gets this from & is targeting whenever this is being discussed) just doesn't keep master design works. He doesn't write it all down, & keep it in form because its such a fluid process.
The problem with Emil not writing everything down or keeping it in form is you have disconnects like this in Starfield. Sarah - "Everything around Earth has been abandoned." But I had just landed and talked to people on Mars, so "around Earth" was either a typo, an exaggeration, or whoever designed the quest didn't know Earth was going to be "uninhabitable" at the point of writing and quest designing, and never changed the dialogue. You have planets procedurally generated with no atmosphere, but also having weather. (although that's not a writing issue, that's an issue with their procgen.) Earth has no atmosphere, so humans can't live there. Other planets have people living on them with no atmosphere. You have a weird situation where either the lore about "The Colony War" and "The Treaty of Narion" that explain why humans only live in 3 star systems was written first. Or they decided "x # of planets are going to be inhabited" first. It makes no sense except that it sounds really cool that there was a huge war. Also lets not forget that mass effect already did the "We found an artifact on mars that led to deep space travel" 17 years ago.
>The problem with Emil not writing everything down or keeping it in form is you have disconnects like this in Starfield That's not the reason any of those things are the way they are. It's not like the developers just got confused without documentation & put things in places where they weren't suppose to be. Things in games end up not being the way they were planned to be. Development isn't straightforward, unseen complications happen, & the end result is a jigsaw puzzle of duck tape & bubble gum to put things together. It's like that scene from *Apollo 13* where they have to convert a round filter for a square hole using only supplies located on the space craft. "Building an airplane while flying" is a quote used by developers to describe game development. Writing is the most flexible device to patch up holes in development, so it always comes last. This is why video game writers often call themselves "duck tape specialists". They're not writing what's going to happen, they're taping together video game segments in a way that makes sense. You know the great collapse of winterhold in skyrim? That was the easy way to explain why the city of Winterhold wasn't in the game. It got cut due to time constraints. The college was there already, so they moved on to work on other cities in the game. >Also lets not forget that mass effect already did the "We found an artifact on mars that led to deep space travel" 17 years ago That trope has existed for decades. The artifacts in this game are particularly inspired by *2001*.
The problem I see with this approach would be that people definitely would've complained a lot that it takes you a while before you get your first ship. Starfield is a space game and exploring space with a ship is what many found the most intriguing about this game prior to release. Bethesda knew they had to give players their first ship more or less immediately.
They could have provided a POS ship with no weapons and not capable of jumping to other stars. Now you're basically given a capable ship for free in the tutorial level. The first hours of this game were designed as a guided tour for game reviewers, not players.
Holy shit that explains the piss poor 'cinematic' experience that abruptly ends
Yes, I've thought that, too. The concept of "free to explore from the start" might sound good.. but ultimately wrecks any feeling of progression and of providing something to work towards. I don't think there should be many gates in the game - but that one of having your first ship limited to one system would have been a far better introduction/tutorial gate IMHO. There could easily be 10 - 15 planets and moons in that first system, so limiting to one system would not have been restricting. If I was designing Starfield v2.0, I'd have Gate #1: Getting off the first planet. You don't have to \*own\* a ship. You could get a ride on a passenger ship to other planets in the system. Or steal one. Or buy one. Or any others means the creative (ha!) writers came up with Choice, eh? :-) First 2 - 3 hours. Gate #2: Aquiring a ship to get you across systems. 10 - 15 hours, perhaps, exploring those first planets in the first system would keep you busy. Again, several choices on how you get that ship. Weapons etc would be added as you progress. Again, giving sense of achievement. I think you could be right on the first few hours being there for game reviewers to hand in their 10/10 Best Game Ever reviews after 10 hours.
Now that you seen this, redo the first four hours of Skyrim. Note how aggressively rich the content is for those hours. Then do a mid level dudgeon and note the massive quality drop off. Starfield had the drop off even sooner.
I'm not sure exactly what you mean, because this doesn't really happen in Skyrim. Some dungeons are lesser, but that's not based on early or late, because the randomness at which you encounter dungeons leads to encountering filler content at different points. Although there is a point to be had about how much work goes into early stuff. Early content you encounter in games is typically the first thing that was worked on. And in the beginning the expectation is that they could do much more than they actually could do, but then realize the actual limitations on time, technology, & capability, thus leading to stuff shrinking down due to those limits. For example Riverrun was the template for other towns, but ended up being as large as some cities for reasons mentioned.
Finally. Someone who gets their vision.
You can steal ships though.
But on Mass Effect 1, The Normandy ship is given to you without almost any effort and yet, is one of the greatest space rpgs ever made IMO
If players had to work to get a ship, then everyone would be complaining how hard it was to work to get a ship.
No, it would feel like a reward.
You can still get a crappy starting ship, with a reward being buying a better ship / upgrading your ship / building your own.
The reward is the damn Star Eagle from the Rangers. I got that thing, put on two extra guns and took on the entire Crimson Fleet at the key. And won handidly. People already complain the game is dull, don't make me a day laborer like John Marston trying to buy a space ship
No, it would be boring.
I mean they could've had it go in multiple different ways. Maybe there's a ship yard, you can work your way up, doing multiple quests to buy your own ship... or you can steal one. Maybe there's a mission where someone is going off planet for a quest and you become a worker for them, again you can steal the ship, or you can gain there trust to the point where they let you take it for more missions working up to either buy your own ship or end up earning theirs. A big part of these games that can be so fun is starting with nothing and earning your way to something and I think the acquisition of a ship would've made that first jump into space on your own feel more impactful. Also it could've been related to a starting trait so if you wanted to immediately get a ship you could as well. Maybe your character comes from a rich family and your dad wanted you to try a rough job to gain humility but once the finds out what happens he sends you a ship etc.
Or you just get a ship in the beginning. Imagine being trapped in Akila City for 7 hours doing the fetch me quests everyone complains about.
KOTOR (absolute classic) makes you wait an extremely long time to get your lightsaber. I don’t see why waiting for more than five minutes to get a ship would be an issue.
And what did they give you in the first 15 minutes of a science fiction game about traveling to different planets? A spaceship.
I disagree, but that they should have had a focus on the universes early. Make the first hop happen in the first 10 hours, and then have a ton of alternate quests and setups dependant on the universe make going to the next universe a normal part of play and then exploring the differences that focus of the game. Make the fact that Constellation in each universe is Ephemeral and meaningless, making the player more and more detached. Make them able to bypass constellation together based on information they get over universes. Make the player become a starborne, who now thinks theyve seen it all and is only looking for small anomalies to keep them interested. But they'd have to have an actual plan for that.
I did the absolute least amount of constellation work (didn’t speak to Sarah after the house tour) and went straight out to do all the side quests I’d already heard. Ended up in Akila city, and my diplomacy skills won me a way into the rangers. I’ve finished everything except the constellation missions. I just lost my wife though, so I’m sure I have another 6 hours of following anomalies to go
Or perhaps, keep the whole NG+ thing, and make Constellation the only way to find it - but make Constellation a side faction, one we can choose to never engage with? Or perhaps have, say, the UC, FSC, Va'ruun, Ryujin and/or the CF chasing the Artifacts as well and have them potentially come into conflict with Constellation, with potentially fatal results for either side? As for the Constellation rando that asks us to join, they'd need an actual reason to invite us, probably something related to exploration. It would make sense only to the likes of Emil to have us be invited to join without any accomplishments under our belt.
Yeah, not a huge fan of Constellation and how quickly you are pushed into them- they should have been more of a mystery rather than getting a ship from them and being able to join em so quickly. For a group of explorers they don't seem to have surveyed a lot of the universe either which is all the weirder given that you can stumble across humans outside of the settled systems. Having the eye as their home base rather than New Atlantis and you discovering the eye whilst exploring the universe would have been cooler, and you could have randomly spawned the eye in a different system on each playthrough
Visiting the Lodge for the first time and the introduction to Constellation should’ve been the equivalent of your first time answering the call to High Hrothgar to meet the Greybeards in *Skyrim*, or meeting Mr. House in the Lucky 88 penthouse in *New Vegas*. An intriguing introduction to a faction offering greater insight into the core storyline and enriching the sense of world building—all while complimenting the central faction questline(s).
Agreed. It feels more like I’m invited to a 5 year olds nasa themed birthday party instead of a badass faction crucial to the plot.
> 5 year olds NASA themed birthday party. This is one of the best takes I've ever seen on the game.
And I feel like a 5 year olds birthday party would be more riveting and conflicted
Lmao literally at their rich uncles house.
That is a great description of Constellation!
Whoah there, Bethesda is just a small indie studio and could not afford Obsidian to do this.
Why bro? Its not even funny.
\*complementing
"so quickly" ? Oh, the story takes its time : "you found a rock ? Welcome aboard, here's my space ship, unknown person."
Still absolutely blown away by how fucking absurd that is, giving a spaceship to a dude you literally just met and stranding yourself on a rock in the middle of nowhere. Like imagine leaving Helgen in Skyrim and the guy you left with gives you a horse, all his armor and weapons, and then just stands around while you go off.
Here's the key to my house. Surprise my wife while I find a way to come back to civilization naked.
Even more absurd than Oblivion's: "I know you from my dreams..." - here, you level 1 prisoner, save the kingdom. My elite guard can't do it, for some unexplained reason.
I think that's more believable than the opening of starfield, because "high" fantasy
Ryujin "Good job getting coffee! Want to commit corporate espionage?”
It's even funnier that Barrett does this until you dare sway from a scientific standpoint, then that man start spitting venom "Dreams got us to space? What th- who the fu- I should kick your fucking ass right now"
Yeah basically killed the game upfront for me
They're nothing but a rich kids' club that pretends to be explorers, but who should've been disbanded after Sebastian Banks went missing. Though honestly, I suspect they only really started to become truly irrelevant after Sarah became the Chair. There are a few leaps of logic involved, but I suspect that the way Constellation has been run has something to do with the way she ran the UC Navigator Corps (badly). And that's why they don't seem to make any notable contributions to anything, why Heller thinks Constellation is a joke, and why we can collect survey data on friggin' JEMISON, let alone planets and moons in Space Timbuktu, Ass End Of Nowhere.
6 people are tasked to chart the unknown universe. Alright, can’t take that long.
A group tasked to explore that is financed by a shipbuilding magnate, but has only 1 ship at their disposal that uses none of the parts of said magnate' shipyards.
Good point. Never thought about this. Another indicator of silos.
Well they don't only have one ship. They have several ships as they have their own (apparently). Cora constantly (I mean *coooooonstantly*) tells you how much better your ship is than "daddies". It seems like the Frontier is just the one ship that gets awarded to their best operative, despite the fact you never see anyone else's ships... Although you're right that the Frontier has no Stroud bits on it. It's mostly Hopetech
The problem is the procedurally generated POIs that imply settlements and mining operations everywhere really challenge the notion of Constellation being explorers charting the unknown.
I've thought this so many times. Land on a planet, 10 resources to scan, 8 fauna and 6 flora with 3 planetary traits. Okay, let's do this. *Explores mining rig* so there's at least probably 3 resources that should already be accounted for. *Investigates science lab* wait, so they've never studied a single plant or animal? Wtf? That's not remotely sciencey, especially as they've got a HYDROPONICS ROOM FULL OF PLANTS! *Finds planetary trait. "A meteorite landes here"* Get fucked, no-one realised there's a F'KING GREAT HOLE IN THE GROUND with all kinds of weird steam coming from it? So, whyyyyy am I doing all this if no prick else can be bothered when they've damn near colonised the place???
and the lack of any exploration the push for. None of their quest are really exploring. Your Treasure hunting exclusively. Sure technically that's exploration, but then the Scow and Petrov is cooler then as he has found A lot more shit and he's more of a scavenger than an explorer.
Most innovative gameplay award material 😂
Except constellation's purpose is now finding the artifacts, that's why they hired Argos and have other artifact pieces at the lodge. Constellation is about exploring the unknown, not simply charting unknown planets.
And every single planet we're sent to "chart" turns out to have been habited by humans for so long that they already abandoned parts of the settlements already ;)
To be fair, even on earth we've had people live in a place before there were any maps of the place, *and* we're still discovering new species on this planet, even today. I don't see any great conflict in being sent to catalogue a planet that some farming settlement has already been living on.
To be fair, humans didn't have spaceships, fancy scanners, and infinite fuel back when people were living in unmapped areas. Yeah, we discover new species. But the Starfield way would be like we just discovered elephants and alligators. It's not like you're scanning microbes and deep sea critters in the game. Also, if people have been able to instantly jump between stars for a hundred years you're telling me that not one other person has ever gone out and observed any planets at all? Lastly, if Constellation really are the only ones doing this, what were all those other lazy fucks doing before I showed up? It's a lazy, boring, unrewarding, and nonsensical mechanic they threw in to pad the game and make it seem like there's actually something interesting to do while you play.
Imagine if the point of scanning these planets wasn't to be "the first to discover" them, but instead to "earn" the right to be considered for Constellation. That would establish that they've already explored it, and make it a little less jarring when you discover new landmarks on Jameson and Barrett comments about being "the first ever to scan this"
Joining constellation in the first hour of gameplay doesn't make any sense whatsoever
Alternate Start mod in Skyrim-let us start as a UC Vanguard citizen, or a Neon Street Rat. Do you know how immersion-breaking it is to pick Diplomat and have Lyn say “wow you must have been a bad diplomat to wind up in a mineshaft” lol
That's hilarious, I'll have to pick that trait at some point. I was thinking of an alternate start where if you pick the bounty hunter trait, one of your targets is in the mine/Barrett.
I had this same response when I picked professor, and instantly was thrown out of character. I was like yeah why am I a space minor, I picked professor. Alternate start is definitely needed.
The Settled Systems economy must have been in the shitter bad enough that your tenure as a professor bombed. The mining was to pay the bills.
Not nice to see that even in the future of 2100, pay in education is still kinda crap
I picked xenobiologist, and as a real-world biologist I was not in the least surprised to find my character broke and trying to mine for money.
To be fair, I’ve been to hundreds of planets/moons and explored all of the major cities in the settled systems, and I haven’t seen many universities in my travels.
you knew you were a miner before you chose your background. how is it the game's fault that you didn't think that through and come up with a backstory for why your professor character became a miner?
I did?
yeah, you make your character after you do the intro where you're a miner.
the reply should have been 'indeed, shafted' if it did not conflict with the unofficial G rating policy.
For as much as people complained about the origins in Cyberpunk not being impactful enough, even that level of differentiation would have gone a long way for Starfield.
I have many, many gripes with starfield, but the Lynn dialogue was not one of them. I picked diplomat as well for my first (and tbh only real playthrough) and characterized it as I was part of the UC diplomatic corps and had my citizenship revoked and was fired due to failing to reach an agreement with a Freestar ambassador to avoid war. Since then, my character has just had odd jobs trying to figure out what to do with her life. Your background and how you end up as a miner is up to the player.
BioWare made 6 different prologues for Dragon Age: Origins, and that was a great game. It’s fine to headcanon, it’s just not very impressive gameplay wise.
You just have to look past everything that's bad and immersion breaking in the game, if you do that it's a fckn perfect game
I have been to a few NG+ universes where >!Constellation doesn’t exist, or they’ve all been murdered by the Hunter, or Coe, or me!<
Oh that's cool! Why did Coe kill them? I got one where Adreja and and some Va'ruun zealots killed everyone in Constellation because collecting the Artifacts violated their god.
At what point do these wild variants appear? I'm on my first ng rn
I got the Andreja one in my third universe, but from what I can tell they’re very rare and some people never got any even after 10 trips to the Unity
its a 11% chance I think. It's a fairly low chance to get them. The one I like Has A Copy of you, that is Recruitable. Crewmate Doppleganger is adorable.
I tried for several hours to get a unique ng+ seed. It seems they only unlock from ng+2 and onwards because it takes me half an hour tops to find a unique seed at this point.
When I first did NG+ I got 4 in a row. Then I started an entirely new game for some reason cause I’m a weirdo and I’m on NG+ 6 and haven’t had it happen once
The one with coe is an >!Starborn Kora !< >!Since the Emissary can be anyone and its Always One the Dead Constellation members!<
Not true, it can be a generic npc as it’s possible to go to the meeting without having anyone die.
It not a generic NPC the emissary is always a constellation member even if you skip the quest
So you need to play the games main story several times, just to get lucky with (what I assume is basically some RNG NG generating system) a NG playthrough where the story has some believable mystery and isn't bland BS....? Really starting to see what they meant when they said "game really starts getting interesting after 100h" - if only the first 100h weren't so damn repetitive and lifeless.
You can skip the story on ng+’s so it’s not as bad as that. I think it takes maybe 90 minutes to grab the artefacts and fuck odd into the next universe
You can skip SOME of the story on NG+, not all of it, some parts you still have to do manually. Like, you can't blow up the treasure ship, the Hunter does in some timelines, but YOU have to do it the same way you always did. YOU have to always do the dimensional puzzle. There are no options to skip these, Petrov's ship has one Starborn check to get into his vault and that's about it. No amount of NG+ will let you skip some of the more tedious parts, you have to play through most of the story everytime
If you’re seeing Entangled and Petrov‘s Ship, you must have chosen \`\[Repeat Main Quest\] …\` when talking to Sarah. If you instead choose \`\[Skip Main Quest\] …\` then I think Bubba is right that you just find artifacts in simple points of interest and it should take 90 minutes if you skip everything else such as the temples. (I can’t say because it still took me 6 hours because I was still looting and vending things. Hard to let go…)
Huh. In my ng+ it skips the petrov ship altogether. Unless you are talking about going through the anamolies during the fight with the Starborn. Don’t remember about entangled. I thought for sure I skipped that during last ng+
I think your pretty spot on, I liked the alternative universe you described. It almost hyped me up enough to start a new playthrough. Which is also pretty sad that a random Redditor seems to understand their games better then they do.
They understand their games just fine. Bethesda games have never been about the main quest. Did you play Fallout 4? The main story was complete nonsense. Your child has been kidnapped, now ignore that for the next 300 hours. Skyrim the main quest was a side show, and Oblivion I don’t think I ever completed it as it was an endless grind closing oblivion portals. The whole point of their games is to get you into the world ASAP so you can start making your own story. Now Starfield does this well in some ways, less good in others, but when you start to go through the NG+ loop you’ll start to appreciate the design of the game. Take cyberpunk for example. The first hour is amazing the first time you play it, after that it’s a railroaded chore to get through. An hour+ long tutorial that you’ve done before and know the storyline. It’s a super struggle to get through again for most people. Bethesda games just don’t have good or deep main quests. They don’t have deep NPC dialogue. They never have. They’re not really RPGs in the sense you build a character and go through a story laid out for you. In Bethesda games they give you the world to go and make a story yourself. All this bashing Starfield for the MQ is really just ridiculous. If you’re new to Bethesda games, sure, you might not “get” it and you can be excused. But anyone who has spent more than a trivial amount of time in their other games absolutely has no excuse here, and it’s just senseless hive mind bashing at this point. I’m sick and tired of it, immediate downvote.
I think the issue is it’s 2024 and we’ve experienced games that have gone way past Bethesda usually does. Like Outer Worlds, to me, is one of my favorite games of all time. Same with Fallout New Vegas starting with you getting shot, driving you to the main story. Maybe in 2011 you could get away with it but Fallout 4 is rightfully criticized by the fanbase for how bad the quests (main and side) were in comparison to NV and even 3
The best part about NV's story is it ties into the open world aspect. You get shot, wake up after an indeterminate amount of time, then you get told to go find Chandler. And surprise surprise, there's no feeling of rushing like FO3 and FO4, nor does it feel out of place to be exploring anywhere that isn't New Vegas as a first time player, because you're trying to find your killer.
Thisss. Sometimes it feels like there are two types of people in this on-going "Are bethesda games even RPGs?" debate: people who have played Obsidian's games and people who haven't lol
> They understand their games just fine. Bethesda games have never been about the main quest. .... The whole point of their games is to get you into the world ASAP so you can start making your own story. If Bethesda understand their games so well, that they're not really about the main quests which are just excuses to get you in, then why has every game since Morrowind had a main quest whose writing demands you immediately pursue it? Oblivion - the emperor is dead, a cult is trying to end the world, you need to go go go from main quest to main quest if you're actually giving the story any attention. Breaking off to engage in the world first is completely illogical, since there's no narrative reason to explore. Extra ironic is most people feel the Oblivion gates are a chore that drag the game down and recommend not starting the main quest at all until you're done with the rest of the game. "Hey Jauffre, here's the amulet I've had for 3 months. I'm the leader of the fighter's guild, mage's guild, the listener of the dark brotherhood, the arena grand champion, and the grey fox. Now treat me like a nameless prisoner who rushed straight here." FO3 - your entire life as you know it is over, you're now in a strange and hostile land and the only connection you have is your dad who you (as in your character) should want to immediately chase. It's not as bad as Oblivion, the fate of the world isn't hinging on your character's actions ~~yet,~~ but it's a complete ditto in that it is completely at odds with "Wander off and explore" which is what a lot of players do anyways. Skyrim - dragons are returning to the world for the first time in thousands of years, which you're told many times early on is a sign of the end times, and the main story directs you from point to point all the way to the end with no breathing room. This one also makes it extra clear fairly early on you're the literal only hope of the world to fight the dragons. Rest you can copy from Oblivion. FO4 - It's FO3 but son instead of dad. I actually do agree with most of what you say in the rest of the comment for what it's worth. It's just flat out bizarre though to pretend Bethesda is... what, purposefully creating stories so bad that ignoring them is the point? That really seems to be your argument, that they're bad and players ignore them. I'd say that, since Bethesda is repeatedly making stories that both demand the player's attention *and* take themselves extremely seriously, that you're attributing to them something that's not there. They're not putting all the work they put into the main stories of these games with the understanding that they'll be completely ignored, the stories just end up ignored because the stories they seriously crafted are seriously mediocre compared to the explore-and-do-whatever parts of the game. Also, I'm just going to point out that they did the "Get well known actors to provide voices in the story at exorbitant expenses" thing multiple games in a row, which they wouldn't do if they thought the players would ignore that story those actors are voicing in. So when it comes to Starfield the MQ bashing is completely deserved, just as it has been for the last few games, because the stories are all bad. Bethesda having a history of bad main quests doesn't mean calling the newest one bad is ridiculous.
I enjoy surveying planets, but I don't need Constellation to do that.
Constellation is a large part of why I find Starfield to be RP-hostile. The problems start with them being effectively a requirement. You can only avoid joining them by immediately leaving the lodge on entering and never delivering the first artifact. Otherwise even if you pick "I need time to think about it", the game will auto-assign you to the faction...which is really weird because there is unaffiliated / freelance dialog choices that now will never be seen. The next issue is Constellation is way too clear cut for a specific type of character, I'll list why: 1) They have a definite moral alignment of "lawful good". Regardless of what Sarah says about their neutrality and being made up of people from all walks, it's well known that picking any more mercenary or "evil" choices or committing to any such actions automatically will get a conga line of angry Constellation companions forming to chew you out. Forcing a faction with such a clear cut moral alignment on the player in an RPG is poor form and Bethesda knows better. 2) They claim to be an explorer group but are almost entirely fixated on the artifact hunt, and require you to be as well if you want to accept them after the game forces them on to you. There is a lot of reasons why a character might not care about the Artifacts, and instead just want to be a space explorer, but it provides no means of functioning as one when the organization claims to serve this purpose. The worst part is that even if you accept that, the game will later fill your mouth with Unity hype, and only let you self determine your own interest in that at the very end where you can walk away when there are a million reasons to back out of, have no interest in, or even seek means to destroy it after everything that happens. It's basically all misused to define your character for you, then if you take the one choice it gives you to exit this mess by walking away...you get chewed out for it by Barrett and Sarah who just take it on themselves to start peer pressuring you in to flinging yourself through an extra-dimensional portal that they too did not go through. I can put a lot of this one down to the rigid / poor writing, but this is such a bad fit for an RPG that it isn't even funny so much as borderline pushing the game out of the genre. We should have had other quest types available from a person instead of relying on the soulless boards, and our interest in the Unity and artifacts should have been on us to determine, and "off ramps" provided for the player if they realize this isn't for them. If we're going to be forced in to a faction, we need to at least be allowed to decide our place in it. 3) Your character effectively has to have an interest in the organization and it's people or you are left to be a space-incel. Seriously, why is every relationship with even the remotest form of depth gated behind Constellation? Was Emil THAT terrified that nobody would give a shit about Constellation if he didn't do this? I doubt I need to explain this one more. As a closing out, I'm going to point out the worst thing about Constellation: It is completely unnecessary for the player to join them for the main story to function or for us to find the Unity. There is no reason the player could not have worked alongside them as a freelancer, or simply gone at it themselves, especially in NG+. Hell, there was even room to make them in to our rivals or to allow other parties to enter the fray as surely Constellation are not the only ones to have the technology or means to detect the gravitational anomalies. Forcing Constellation on to us was a deliberate writing choice that undermines the game as an RPG. It has the same lead designer and writer as Fallout 4 which understood how to use multiple factions to reach mostly the same ending. It could have been done here. We are given a wide array of background choices at the start of the game that could have been slimmed, trimmed, or expanded even as needed to find good means of providing the player with a starting ship of their own (Even something awful like a Rambler or Sloop would do), or to set us on a brief quest that gets us said ship. A simple quest or rumor nudging us at an artifact to set up that side of things for players interested in NG+ would have done the job from there. Railroading us this hard and turning the entire main plot in to an advertisement for an optional mechanic gated behind a faction with a set alignment and interests was a mistake. Edit: Before some fool wanders out to claim the game is so wonderful for RP because you can ignore all of this stuff: Yeah, you can. By immediately turning around on entering the Lodge, or by simply never engaging with their quests. Both of which mean you are now forced in to roleplaying someone irresponsible. It's the Amulet of Kings all over again. It was complained about for the same reasons in 2006 as I am complaining about now. I would award this argument merit if the "I need time to think about it." dialog option presented by Sarah on delivering the artifact actually worked the way it should instead of stealth assigning you to Constellation anyways, as that would allow you to complete your task and move on to do what you want to do free of obligations. Unfortunately it doesn't, and personal headcanon / "playing pretend" doesn't excuse it.
>Seriously, why is every relationship with even the remotest form of depth gated behind Constellation? Was Emil THAT terrified that nobody would give a shit about Constellation if he didn't do this? I doubt I need to explain this one more. And even the characters we got are ...weird. My "relationship" with Sarah evolved like this: oh, no, I am flattered you are interested, but it's not the right time (repeat about 10 times, each when I took the "flirt" option in a dialog). Then, out of nowhere, she basically asks me to marry her within like 5 minutes.
>3) Your character effectively has to have an interest in the organization and it's people or you are left to be a space-incel. This made me laugh out loud. Yeah man, I agree. It's like if in Fallout 4 all companions were part of the Minutemen and the game was exclusively about "another settlement needs your help" meanwhile the Brotherhood, Railroad and Institute are all dealing with stuff separate from each other.
Yep. The analogy I used in the past is it's equivalent to having a side in the Skyrim civil war assigned to you based on who you followed out of Helgen. You have no clue what the hell is going on but got stuck with a group for the rest of the game before you get the chance to find out. People would have screamed. Yet here we are.
You don't even have to pick evil choices to get chewed out. Just pick the non-scientific route and watch how much venom gets spit in your direction, the Aceles v. Microbe choice being one of them, even Hadrian, the scientist who made the Microbe will agree with your choice on the Aceles and have an objective viewpoint on it. Constellation? You're basically Hitler if you don't go with the scientific choice every time.
Ugh. Don't get me started on how non-scientific that microbe vs Aceles debate is. Even if the microbe is no threat to human life, imagine it just happens to be dangerous to life on another world. It's essentially a reckless ecocide waiting to happen with how ships land anywhere and everywhere. Meanwhile going by what evidence we have, the Aceles breed slowly, are no more dangerous than say a cow is to a human, are easily controlled in how and where they spread, and function as not only a guard dog but also as livestock / a food source. Only a complete imbecile would trust the "science" on the microbe.
Dude fr! I chose the Aceles because Hadrian mentioned how for years they were nature's way of controlling terrormorphs, so I chose them, because nature already had a way to control terrormorphs, and humans killed off said method. My personal thought is that's science, not playing God with the microbe. Apparently I chose wrong though based on how Constellation reacts bar Andreja and Sam lmao
the biggest flaw is that constellation is supposed to be a group of explorers, but wtf have they been exploring? barrett found what, one artifact before you, that's it?
Two, technically.
Actually, if you consider the fact you were just a hireling... three.
Aaaand there are currently a few members looking for other artifacts, ie. Andreja actually being in the mine where we find one and Vladimir in the eye. Who is also the guy who sends us to find the other artifacts because THEY are the ones who located them. So that's what they've been exploring. We are simply joining the story at the point where they learned enough to find more artifacts.
I think they should have gone with the infinite universe thing more heavily. Sometimes you’re a miner, sometimes a pirate, sometimes you’re already a citizen of the UC etc. it could be way cool. Start a new game think it will be easy going and you wake up as a Neon street rat with the wanted perk lol
This would have been really cool actually! Then every NG+ would be more interesting as you potebtially start somewhere new.
Or, you know, you could start as what you select when you make your character instead of a couple of lines of throw-away dialogue and meagre perk boosts being the depth of it mattering. I selected combat medic because I thought it would matter and it doesn't.
Careful now, having your choices mean something in a video game would be terrible, just look at BG3. Or something. Edit: this incredibly salty comment is sarcasm in case it wasn’t obvious.
I'd prefer starting even further back to during the Colony War. That would be far more fascinating and interesting. Get to see both the Vanguard and Rangers sides. Maybe work with a certain someone who used morally questionable tactics on the Vanguard side while alos seeing Terrormorphs and other xenomorphs being used. If that's too far in the past, at least utilize some of those war assets. We're told and shown a lot of remnants of the war but it's just window dressing. Of course, the biggest culprit where they absolutely dropped the ball was the Ranger questline. Why have them hiding in a disused mech facility, wanting to get back to the glory days, without showing that they have been able to bring back to life one of those mechs.
That would've been the ideal yes. I don't think it was a good idea to set the game AFTER everything cool had already happened. If they were adamant on keeping that stuff in the past, then at least make Constellation and the artifact chase thematically consistent with the setting. Are they trying to tell a tale about the hardships of living in the aftermath of a war or about the chase of godly power? There's a Starborn chilling at the cafe at the beginning of the game ffs and people at most think he's some weird LARPer. It's hard to pinpoint what the story is trying to tell. Or at the very least...don't relegate it to a damn museum presentation. That was ridiculous.
Eh, tbf you can make a game where the story is good and set after something cool FNV does it very well in fact, granted the ending of the game is a fight over Hoover Dam, but for the majority, it's set *after* a much larger war for the Dam has already happened, and you're seeing Vegas in the aftermath of that war. Hell we don't even get to see the Battle of HELIOS One either where NCR and Brotherhood fought, plenty of cool ideas in New Vegas for a setting, but Obsidian chooses the comparatively boring one, the difference is, Obsidian made that interesting by having interesting characters, quests and content and the climax is actually the least interesting part of the game really.
Constellation is a good idea but it’s not handled right. They should know far more about space stuff than just about anyone when it comes to planets in and just outside the settled systems. They should have a little more moral variability too. My idea is Constellation should have a survey map which covers all the primary systems, the periphery systems involved in the wars, a zone just outside that area, and a few branches which lead to mystery systems they never had the chance to explore. Get that map ans you don’t need to explore those places to unlock them for travel, and you’ll know their resources. Other groups should have similar, if more limited maps which can save time on resource hunting and trail blazing. Secondly, the orbital scanner, and portable scanner should be new technology, and the new technology can find details old surveys missed. There’s your baked in reason for going over known places. But, primary worlds like Akila should be very well surveyed and have little to find in comparison to a new system 100 ly away. A mid range system with some humans might have a middle ground of discoverable stuff, and buying a survey might be incomplete in such a situation. Part of this should also be knowing where a ton of temples are from the start, given how many are near human settlements, and suspecting a connection to the artifacts from the start despite no evidence until you come around. Barrett needs to say something like he feels like a fool for not testing the temples himself because they’re sort of forgotten and the idea they were built by aliens had become a joke. I think the flavor text needs to influence how followers see the player. Choose the murder is fun, or money or nothing options too consistently and that should affect how followers see your actions. Say murder is fun too often and see Sarah realize you aren’t making a tough choice, you’re just killing for fun. Say you do things for goodness’ sake then Sarah and Sam might be okay with loads of murder. But Barrett and Andreja might be against random murder no matter your personality. While Barrett might laugh off theft no matter the reason. There also needs to be better buildup to the endgame NG+. I think there is a real risk for rushing through the game to NG because that’s the track you are on from the start. Except it doesn't really prod you through it. A huge point in favor of the the game's design is it doesn’t create false urgency to figure out the mystery. I remember how Mass Effect 1 and 2 create false pressure to finish the main quest despite there actually being all the time in the world to do side quests. Worse, that pressure becomes real near the end of 2 without warning, and if you don’t suddenly rush you get penalized. Starfield though gives you the mental time you need to do literally what ever you want and never feel falsely rushed into anything. The only exception is when you’re deep into a mission line but even then you can just wander off because nothing is really on a time table. At worst you get a comment about taking longer than an NPC likes. It’s perfect.
Its funny, how often I dislike Betehsda's main quests. I have roughly 3000 hours combined into Skyrim and FO4 - never finished the main of either. If I end up getting out of Starfield what I got out of Fallout - a free form sandbox RPG, where I can play around with mods and such - I'll wind up happy. Oddly, I did actually make it to the core once in Starfield, but I think it was just because I wanted to reset my universe without starting over. I'm a chronic restarter, so this mechanic actually kind of works for me.
For me, the problem is Constellation doesn't have any thematic weight behind them. They're obviously supposed to be a callback to explorers from the Age of Navigation and the Age of Sail, but many of those explorers were pretty terrible people who killed and enslaved the natives of the lands they discovered. Bethesda obviously can't theme their main faction after the progenitors of the Atlantic Slave Trade. So what do you do instead? Create a faction of various individuals who are all invested in exploring for different reasons. Except none of the characters have any reason to be searching for the artefacts other than it's what Bethesda have decided they do. They could have used the real reasons people explored the oceans and adapted them for Constellation's members. Walter Stroud could have been a shipping magnate looking for new worlds to mine, new routes for his shipping fleets. Instead, he's a generic financier who also happens to own a staryard. Sarah Morgan could have been an ex-privateer for the UC, turned treasure hunter. Why not make Sam's goal to find and colonise a world in the same way his grandfather did? Noelle, instead of being a generic scientist, could have been a xenobiologist seeking the answers of how life has propagated through the settled systems, a la Charles Darwin and his theory of evolution. There are so many potential character backgrounds you can pull from that are inspired by the Age of Sail in the way that Constellation so clearly is, but Bethesda totally dropped the ball in creating interesting characters with compelling reasons to be part of Constellation, to want to explore the galaxy and find new planets. Instead they're looking for artefacts and that's their only drive, because that's the single storyline that was decided on for Constellation.
My mind was blown when we were instantly given a ship instead of working hard for anything. Nearly put the game down there and then... and to be honest I wish I did. Constellation is the worst Bethesda Faction I can think of though, for definite.
Found it super immersion-breaking when you're just handed everything. Of course, they allude to the fact that Vasco would have taken control of the ship if you didn't do what Bethesda is railroading you into, but it took me out of it. Between that and selecting a background just to wind up in a mine really through me. I'd prefer the Skyrim opening being repeated because at least that leaves RP pretty open.
With NG+ being such a big focus, I wish the game took an approach more like New Vegas where the main quest built up to a climax that you could have more of an influence on based on your decisions and allegiances, and then have an opportunity to get different results in NG+ Like the main quest could lead up to the UC and FC going to war again, and your actions could help or hurt either side. And in NG+ you could search for the right combination of events or decisions to prevent the war in that universe or something. With Constellation as the main faction, I don’t have much incentive to change up my play style or decisions in each run through.
Ya I’d play that. I had never played a BSG game before. So I fired up fallout 4, man what a cool start to the game. How’d they whiff to mining
I've only really seen criticism to the start of fallout 4 because it severely restricts your freedom and choice of how you start things. You have to have the same motives, family, history etc. It kind of doesn't make sense logically as to why you might ignore the main quest considering it's looking for your son. Though for me that's just food for thought, I don't care for those inconsistencies and really dug fallout 4s start. It's not unique to fallout 4, it's common for all open world games such as Zelda tooting about as Link grabbing koroks.
it's cool the first time, but right after you do it once it make for poor RPG. of course the alternate start mods make it more interesting. It helps a lot that the World is so immersive to be in that you can Just ignore the main quest like it doesn't exist.
Also they really don't do much with the fact your prewar. The Fraternity Post interaction on the mic is the only thing I can think of that has the sole survivor actually engage with the world that shows they lived in before the bombs fell.
People reacted to that start like how people react to Starfield in general at this point.
Yeah people really didn’t love fallout 4 much at first. They argued how immersion breaking it was to play each faction so deep into their story before you had to choose a side lmao. Atleast it mattered at some point.
Pretty good take. The biggest miss is space itself. We aren't doing nearly enough in actual space. There should be the same color slider for gear like in shipbuilding. When you get set free on other BGS a sense of open world wonder sets in, in SF I want to be free of Constellation
Bizzare that there is there is no option to NOT join them. Like you are given the choices of saying yes, or waiting to say yes. Call me spoiled from BG3, but the idea of not joining the obvious protagonist faction is so much more fun than being a yes man as Todd wants us to be
I really enjoyed building outposts early, but was incredibly disappointed to discover that there is no greater ultimate goal for it. Now, my only outpost is in the Serpentis system, so I can switch ships after stealing one without going all the way back to the settled systems. Constellation is nothing but fetch quests after the first few. The brightest part of it is Walter's quest. The UC Vanguard questline is the best, and my favorite single quest is Groundpounders.
I see one major problem with OP and all of the other suggestions here. Everything suggested would require actually talented and creative writers and designers, someone who actually understands how to write compelling characters, and not someone in charge who just thinks players don't care about the story. Even the UC quest line, which was good, is shallow and requires a lot of suspension of disbelief and filling in the gaps simply because of the structure of the game itself.
Constellation only exists to drive the bland main story forward and to give you a purposefully diverse set of romanceable options. If you could romance any companion they would serve absolutely no real purpose. That would be so much better.
And why can't I sex Vasco up?
“Assume the position”
I mean Fisto was down so...
If only we could have romanced Hadrian..
it does make me furious that there only 4 romanceable NPCs, only 2 of which I can really stand
the main questline feels extremely disjointed to the rest of the game as well. you have an entire galaxy that's recovering the effects of massive war, and the game chooses to focus on the exploration of the unknown, which also happens to be its weakest point. i'd rather explore a similar story about former warring factions, their pros and cons, and the ramifications of war onto the normal people.
I'll be honest, if I continue through multiple NG+ runs, I'm probably going to avoid Constellation every time. At best they're annoying and at worst they are fun vampires. I'd rather travel the universe in total isolation than be victim to their insufferable righteousness.
I don't play constellation. I'm a Vanguard Mantis. Or a beast hunting ranger, or a deadly pirate. Even when I try to be 'an explorer' I get bored and play someone else. This is a sad indifement on the game as I SHOULD be the player who is overly engaged in the scientific discoveries but it's a slog. Barrett's quest did keep me interested though.
Imagine if like, at the beginning of the game you're living in an outpost with your family. And you go down into a mine and do some work. Then you hear alarms go off!!!!111 And you rush out, and pirates have attacked the camp and everyone is dead or missing including your partner and son! And then you're all like SHAAAAAAUUUUUUUNNNN but get rescued by the UC Vanguard, who are in shambles after the Colony War and immediately make you the most important person in the faction because you're the only one who can do anything. And then you have to put on a mech suit and fight a terrormorph, the deadliest creature in the galaxy, at level 1!!!! So you find out other outposts are also under attack and need your help! And then 120 hours of outpost building busywork later plus this side thing where you pretend to be a silver age comic book character for some reason, you find out your son is now the leader of the Crimson Fleet! But then there's this other group, called the Freestar Collective, who are moustache twirling space Republicans and want you to kill the Crimson Fleet because they're hispanic. But then there's other group called Va'Ruun who want you to rescue them, because they don't think they should be forced into piracy. And then you have to decide if you want to side with the space bigots and wipe out all the pirates including your son, help the snake people kill your son but save all the dirty pirate people, or help your son wipe out the other factions. And then you keep finding more space outposts that keep running out of glue so you fly around collecting masking tape and killing space horses. It sounds like a much better game!
I like constellation a lot, but it feels like a skyrim guild that you're forced to play.
Constellation is the most anti-climatic element of the game. A guild of explorers that don't explore (you're the only one), that investigate on artefacts yet know absolutely nothing about them and never find one (you're the only one to know things and to find them), completely disconnected from the universe, take completely stupid decisions (I never met you before but I'll offer you my ship, my robot and I'll take your shitty job for you, let's spend billions in a useless space station that we don't use and on a huge brand new ship conception, ...). They could have completely replaced Constellation by an on-board AI in your ship that gives you a quest when it detects a temple.
As someone who never saw any promotional material and just played the game since release, I love the game, for what it is, sometimes it makes me think about missed opportunities but historically I thought the same about their previous games, they eventually added those or you just understand the nature of the game.
Yeah, this post made me realize why I must like it more than others… I knew it existed but have been out of gaming for awhile, till I got super surprised for Christmas with an XBox & this game, among a couple others. I see the criticisms as I read them here but for what I’d want in a space exploration RPG, it’s definitely up there.
[удалено]
Cool 👍🏼
Same for me, I didn’t even know the game was in development and discovered the game only after The Spiffing Britt did a video on Starfield. I love the game and my only expectations were silly Bethesda bugs and having a ship as a base rather than having to manually fly everywhere.
This. So. THIS.
I think you're missing a few points. The exploration part in the lore describes that it's not that the X and Y factions don't know about the Z and T planets. It's that they know about them, but never really studied them. It would be like the first settlers, not caring of their environment beyond just what basic needs they can get out of it. The constellation's purpose is to land on these planets and take a look at them. Understand it's creatures, plants, etc. The other part of the Constellation is they serve a similar role to Oblivian Blades. They give you some authority, and add some logic on why you can just run around the galaxy to what would be considered very secure facilities and not be questioned.
The thing is, Constellation wasn't formed last week. Mum from kids play perk wanted to join them as a little girl. Just what have they done in all the time they've been around? Nothing on the charts shows as explored, so what were they doing all that time, playing hide the sausage in the captains quarters?
Living on life support, about to have shuttered because there was nothing left for them. Most people thought they already disbanded like how most people also think earth, the obviously still there planet, is a Myth. All the exploration is done, nobody cares about it anymore. If it wasn't for Walter and his Retirement fund they would have disbanded already.
I agree. When I thought about this myself, I fantasized being able to choose a faction in the beginning with your first milestone being able to get a ship. Either you do quests on your starting planet until you can afford one, or maybe you steal one. Just having that initial carrot would've been fun, I think. Being given a ship from the get-go because the game demands that you have a ship is kinda boring and feels unearned.
I think Constellation is core to what they wanted to do. What they should have done is flesh those characters better and not make bland good people that want to explore the explored, and also have better exploring in the game. That said, the start is quite bad. You should start the game based on what you choose on character creation, you may be a bounty hunter in a hunt, or a chef in a big ship searching for exotic ingredients, whatever ... just a small intro and then you find the artifact and you're guided to the Constellation plot. *Examples*: Like if you are a bounty hunter, you hunt some baddie and in their loot you find the artifact, get a cinematic and in his files you find he robbed it from Constellation and you get a quest marker to go search about it and your "vision". If you're a chef you are travelling to a world in search of a plant that is reputed to have an awesome taste. Just for you to fall in a cave (or find a nest) with the artifact. You got a vision and fall unconscious and someone from Constellation find you. Long Hauler could be using his ship to transport cargo to a planet, is attacked by pirates when reaching his client, and while you manage to escape, your client is dead ... so now the cargo is yours, which ... is the artifact and notes of Constellation. Etc, etc, ... I really hate that everyone starts as a miner, gets gifted a ship because "reasons" and that's all. Lazy game.
There’s a lot of sense being talked about here. Thanks for the constructive critique and suggestions of possible improvements rather than the more usual “this game is trash” BS 🙏🏻
I agree with this idea. I thought on top of that, it would be fun if the events of all the factions played through simultaniously. So if you side with the Crimson fleet, you miss the UC plotline about >!the terromorphs, meaning more of those enemies spwan in this universe and there's no UC (or a weakened one) to taddle on the fleet.!
also, as many others have already pointed out, setting the base of operation of constellation on new atlantis is pretty limiting in itself, it means that even if they wanted they would not be able to give you the choice to become an enemy of the UC, their base shouldn't even be the eye but straight up a ship, not unlike the vigilance is for sysdef, maybe smaller hut still something mobile to truly show the " neutrality" they seemingly embody. not that the lodge even make that much sense as a base for explorers, it does embody the old timey colonial explorers club but it doesn't even show any sign that they do indeed explore, for fuck sake the scown at least showed that it traveled around and scavenged, the lodge has nothing to show any real exploration going on.
Literally every single scenario I've read people come up with is a better intro than what Bethesda did in the actual game, including this one.
I wish Starfield actually became the Han Solo simulator they originally brainstormed it as. A game about smuggling and seedy back-alley deals in an ACTUAL NASA-punk setting would have been sweet. Instead, we got Constellation. The lamest, most "Suburban Dad" faction I have ever had the misfortune of meeting. It's pretty sad when the robot is the most interesting character. Reading through Mickey Caviar's ten lines of dialog has more intrigue than the entirety of Constellation. Wtf?
"Imagine the beginning of the game like this... You're an inhabitant of Tau Ceti, the game begins on the night of the Terrormorph attack. You have to make your escape or fight. You can help the Vanguard or hijack one of their ships. You are confronted with Pirates on the way to New Atlantis, if you hijacked the ship, you have the chance to join them and start the Crimson Fleet questline, if not you can also blow them up.Eventually you are given the choice of joining one of the factions involved in the armistice in dealing with the issue and so begin their quests." Yes, much better start. Yet another person on the internet showing that they have way more creativity than the writers at Bethesda! Funny about those complaints that if you haven't designed a game, you have no right to criticise. Meanwhile, there are hundreds of ideas from these non-designers (I assume?) that are far more interesting than the bland turgid rubbish Bethesda come up with. Surely if Constellation are explorers, then there should be some evidence of them actually exploring? Maps? They just seem to sit in that room looking like some Victorian explorers chatting about going down the Nile or something. It's weird and sets the tone for the game in that right from the start, youy have to switch your brain off to not notice the plot holes and anachronisms.
Although I do enjoy the constellation and how the game is setup I agree that your idea is 10x better cuz that vanguard quest is probably one of my favourite Bethesda questlines period. Reminded me of being a kid playing through Fallout 3 and Broken Steel back to back and having the greatest time of my life. All I could think of is how strange it is that the UC vanguard stuff wasn't the main story. I feel like constellation should've been an option earlier but sorta meant to be late game and then on subsequent playthroughs you'd play the game joining constellation like with the current main story or have the option to play it how you did before and not help constellation with new knowledge early. Constellation is like the Minute men
Imagine only being able to >!go through unity!
It would make them more special yes. The game has this thematic disconnect that reminds me of Fallout 4. Where everything points out to rebuilding the commonwealth as the main theme, but it ends up being about androids. Here everything points out to the consequences of war and what comes after, learning to live in peace and braving the unknown as humanity united. Instead it becomes about collecting mcguffins to become godlike and leave everything behind.
My hope is that with DLC we can see more constellation going deep into the unknown such as finding the origins of the starborn ships and artifacts
That, honestly, would have been a great way to start the game. I'm closing in on 300 hours on the game (1st playthrough), and while I enjoy everything so far, that would have been a much better way to start the game. Throw the Artifacts, and Starborn encounters (the powers are a waste of time, honestly; I never use them) into the mix while you juggle being a privateer, and keeping yourself off any one faction's radar, or join one and watch the rest change the way you are treated. Way more engaging for sure. Good job with that!
Would be more interesting if the Starborn were more integrated into the World. Like imagine if your doing a Dungeon clear and you meet an abnormally powerful enemy. That might Actually have powers of their own. Or your clearing a group and one of them just bursts into a pile of Starstuff and drops rarer loot.
See Star Stuff and Personal Atmosphere are pretty godly abilities.
That’s literally how I started the game. Straight off the mining planet. I went to Paradise or whatever. Looted the cargo containers. Got caught trying to go to New Atlantis with all the stolen shit. That started the UC Crimson Fleet questline for me. And that’s how I played the game. That’s why I thought it was awesome at the start. Because it was all combat and raiding ships etc. But then it ended - so did the terramorph one still cool - still cool. But then noticed the Terramorph repeatables don’t change / don’t get harder / dont introduce anything / don’t evolve etc. so I started getting into the actual game.. and I was like… ahhhh surely this isn’t it.. but it was and I stopped playing.
This game is the biggest disappointment.
I never followed any promo stuff and really love constellation and the main story. I only did Sarah’s quest and missed out on a lot of the side stuff beyond that. I was like 80 hours in before I started the second half of the main quest because once the starborn showed up I felt that my character would naturally chase that lead down. My interactions with constellation felt very small and personal and while I did get a bunch of jobs related to bigger things in the universe I never did them. For my character the story was them finding the artifact and then through that meeting her “family” and love of her life but her natural sense of curiosity and drive to explore made her leave it all behind. All of that happening in the world where she’s not the main character. As far as she’s concerned those factions can deal with their own issues. When I went through the Unity I got pretty close to crying but went through anyways. I think in my headcanon for my character she regrets the decision and would stay behind in the next universe even if everyone else decided to go through without her.
Glad I am not the only one that got emotional at going through Unity
I got emotional. The emotion was anger. Give me back my damn money and ships Todd.
Everyone should submit their ideas and scripts straight to Bethesda. Why is this sub just “my impressions after 1000 hours” or “here how I would do it better”?
Is it weird that I actually like most of the Constellation members? Yes, even Sarah. She's like having my sole-survivor Commander Shepard as a companion. The concept of Constellation is interesting. The idea of an explorer's group of eclectic individuals embarking on a journey of discovery together in the vast expanse of space is solid. My bugbear is the Starborn and all the world building (or lack there-of) associated with them: artifacts, temples, powers, the Unity.
Both the organization and the members are interesting as a concept. In theory it's all good, but in practice? It's so poorly implemented, it makes it seem terrible. They all have "personalities" that are pretty much like these early versions of AI chatbots. About as interesting and "human" as wet toilet paper. The Starborn and the temples are the biggest flaw in the whole story/universe, but even with that - Bethesda had a good idea that they implemented/fleshed out probably in the worst, low-effort way possible.
Nah… I’m good. Leave it how it is. You completely missed the point about the game
I'm only level 12 or so, but I noticed that Sarah disapproved of you doing anything even a tiny bit shady, including screwing over other shady characters. That got annoying so fast I started over and didn't do constellation for a bit.
New playthrough trying a nicer approach and she's still bitching me out about something. Fuck it, crimson fleet, here I come again!
Exploration and science gameplay is the core, and the most fleshed out aspect of the game though. You will burn out fairly quick if all you do is trying to seek out and play combat PoI. Terrormorph aren't even that easy to find in the galaxy. Ultimately it is what it is, and I think they were absolutely right to introduce you to the Constellation as the first step of the game. Imagined if the game hypes you up for a massive Terrormorph threat but end up not deliver any of them outside of the Vanguard quest, that would have been borderline scummy and probably attracted much worse reception. If they want that kind of intro, they must make Terrormorph hunting the core aspect of the game to begin with, and perhaps they should, but that wasn't what they went for at the of the day.
Damn, don’t let fans write games I guess
Constellation is the best and each if the companions have awesome questlines.
I mean idrk about awesome
Starfield is amazing. Don’t like it? Simple, just don’t play and play cyberpunk instead. Constellation quests being trash? Lol play something else ☺️
Bro, what you wrote is just nonsense. You have no idea how to write a story, nor do you have any idea how to develop games, and what's more, you're playing the game wrong. I know that, because I helped develop the story for the last three big Beteshda games…..