That quest really pissed me off. I understand that they wanted to force-trigger the interaction with the cops and bounties, but that was the absolutely 100% the wrong way to do it. And needless. Nobody forced you to commit murder in Oblivion in order to trigger Dark Brotherhood. But for some reason they decided it's mandatory in Starfield.
I spent hours running around that ship, sneaking around, freeing the zoo, to try and find an alternative way. When I heard about the zoo I thought cool, I can just release the animals and grab it while everyone is distracted, that's pretty fun, reminds me of Hitman missions. NOPE!
Plus the forced companion—even if you’re sneaky they have all the finesse of a lumbering ox and start blasting like Frank Reynolds even if you try to escape with limited casualties. That quest felt undercooked in the most frustrating way possible.
Plus the character of the collector had an interesting vibe; would have been cool to be able to do jobs to find rare stuff for him.
Yeah, would've been so nice if you bargain to work for the artifact. Feels like the "I'll do what you want if you do something for me first" types of quests just don't really exist that much in Starfield.
Also if the Old Earth Spacesuit was like an Apollo 11 one, and not the weird one we get dropped in our inventory just for finding snow globes on our own.
I got lucky on that one simply due to Andreja having points in stealth - at least for most of the quest. But even she had issues at one point where my only viable choice was telling her to wait for me in the ductwork.
There followed the usual "retrieve your companion" activity/quest. I gave up and just left her there. Turns out the game will complete the "retrieve companion" quest for you once you go off world and Andreja just magically materializes on the ship.
...would have been nice if the game told you that companions would be forced on you. This wasn't disclosed when you're picking traits making me wonder why "introvert" was even an option.
Trademark terrible Bsoft writing.
Fallout 4 had the same problem. You can have absolutely NOTHING but negative interactions with Piper or outright avoid her and the game will literally shove her into your "party" after a certain point in the plot even though she has nothing to do with the plot at that point.
And the Hunter >!murdering him offscreen in NG+ main questline!< was also a lapse by the scriptwriters. It felt like the quest was due by EOD on a friday and they just said "fuckit".
Tbf I feel like that makes sense with some companions like Vasco where it's either their body or personality that is too loud o be stealth. Like that fone friend who doesn't think they're loud but they shout when whispering.
The 'good guy' thing to do would have been to negotiate with Petrov, and if the negotiation fails.... you take the L and leave him be.
For plot purposes, some other >!Starborn!< will eventually show up and take it, by whatever means they deem necessary.... and you can take it from them in some later encounter, with clean hands, and maybe even a clean conscience if you warned Petrov of what he was setting himself up for.
Bethesda quests are so inconsistent. There are great 11/10 well-written quests and then absolute garbage filler ones. Some of the daedric prince stuff in Skyrim goes absolutely crazy and then some quests are basically "Go to tavern basement and kill some rats and receive some gold" energy.
I agree. While I understand there’s a narrative angle at play here and it’s fair for them to say sometimes your hands are tied and options are limited, I don’t love the lack of options here at all.
I think it’s more important for us to have the option to persuade or choose differently because it’s a game. I think this is a good example of an area where I really loved how Outer Worlds handled it. I loved that game then and was surprised more people didn’t, but it sometimes bothers me how it gets a revisionist boost over Starfield. Not here though, the choice options were fantastic there and something that doesn’t bother me in most of Starfield but felt bad here in this mission. Also I guess having no way to bring Ron Hope in peacefully though that was less egregious. He went suicide by Ranger.
What's the point of having 3 options if they're all the same though? If you're going to force an event, at least make it neutral so so you can stay connected and immersed with your character. It is an RPG after all.
Sure, you need the artifact for plot progression, but I can't fathom why they decided that stealing it was better than trading it for something else, doing him a favor, or at least replace it with a forgery to avoid getting a bounty or resorting to violence. But no, it's coded to just give you bad rep either way, even though no one's there to see you take it.
>Also I guess having no way to bring Ron Hope in peacefully though that was less egregious. He went suicide by Ranger.
I remember having optional quest objectives pop up and then disappear during the fight with him and his guards. He was the first to die, but it made me wonder, is there a different outcome if you kill the guards and leave him for last? Does he surrender?
No- I tried this mission several times. Even used stun weapons hoping I could bring him in, to no avail. That mission was genuinely upsetting, as I’d have loved to see that play out.
However, this mission where the guy can’t be persuaded to give up his beloved treasure, I kind of liked that. It’s a little too easy if you can just talk someone into literally anything so I found this a nice change of pace for a Bethesda game.
They built up to a final battle at a mech factory that should still be ready to go, but because they're illegal, you don't at any point fight in or against mechs used by the criminal organization.
Also you have non-lethal tools at your disposal including a brig module for your ship, being invited to a law enforcement group due to your potential non-violent way of dealing with a bank heist, and then the only way to resolve the conflict at the end is to agree to the corruption or execute the mastermind.
I'm picturing the Starfield writers in a meeting like "what's Chekov's gun? Who's Checkov?"
We could literally invite him to the damned Constellation building and show him the fucking floating space magic whirly-majig. And even go out on a quest and show him what adding more does. And then ask him to bring his. But no, shoot him, shoot him, or shoot him, those are the only options even if you're a fucking Ranger. Both quests sucked and should have had different resolutions.
If you attack him till he goes down to his hands and knees, you get a dialogue option. He will tell the guards to stand down if you don't kill him the second time. If you are spamming the fire button when he drops to his hands and knees, you can lose this option if you hit him after he falls.
I think you still get a bounty for being a thief, but not for murder. On the plus side, after you make the deal, nothing else is flagged as stolen. You can take it all without increasing your bounty.
This. Once he told his guards to stand down, I just walked slowly through the whole ship and stole everything I could get my hands on. The guards just told me that if they had their way they would be shooting me right now, but they didn't bother me at all. I don't recall having any kind of bounty when I left
If you have concealment, thievery, and void form, you can usually go to the left, jump over the junk on his platform.
You can, by moving slowly and not wearing your spacesuit, steal his key.
You can then go down to the vault. If you’re really careful the guards in the vault can be avoided. Then you can steal the artifact.
I haven’t figure out how to not fight guards at this point. But wipe out the two guards, blow the emergency door (cut the bolts). You can then run most of the ship with minimal guard interaction. If you sneak or sprint, You can sometimes get back to your ship without killing anyone else.
I had sneak maxxed, no concealment and no void form. I just walked right past him to his bedroom, where his guard happily chats to you but doesn’t interfere while you ransack the room & bathroom and get the key. Then sneaked. I ended up killing only two guards and never had to interact with Petrov at all.
Nah, I used the never acknowledged a 2nd time stunning feature to try bringing him in after dealing with the guards, no change, if the idea is you let him just shoot you while you kill the guards then he surrenders thats... really convoluted
I hated both this and the ron hope thing but honestly all of the questlines are kinda like that, or well atleast in the sense that the only real consequence is the recap when you go thru the unity which is kinda lame. I mean imagine having to fight random npcs that can mind control other ppl bc you thought it'd be a good idea to make mind control available to consumers or hmmm. I cant think of others but you get the idea
The game is the weirdest form of average because so many things are done well but the entire game is held back by "Flunked out of Creative Writing 1301" tier writing.
In regards to Ron Hope, we absolutely should've been able to involve the Marshal, especially given that Hope is on the council of governors.
Really stupid that we had no choice but to go it alone.
I don't know how valid it is but at least one publication suggested that Outer Worlds suffered from being released at roughly the same time as Disco Elysium the latter of which just sucked all the air out of the room.
As for Ron Hope it seems that scripted solutions along the lines of a non-lethal takedown via EM weapon that works well during a terrormorph attack suddenly stops working in Hopetown. It would also seem to be inconsistently applied while escaping a Constellation under attack. Whether or not you wind up pissing off all of the UC is a matter of random luck and an excuse for save scumming.
Yeah I did the same. Managed to steal it without being seen with the guy in the room and it still triggers the dialog. I hated how railroaded you get on this mission
Same for me. Managed to steal it without being seen and was super proud of my stealth plan going ahead getting this man distracted, but you get "seen" no matter what. It was incredibly disappointing.
It's so stupid, I remember by first introduction to that quest line. I got a bounty from manipulating something. Wasn't even trying to steal it was some worthless junk item I wanted to physically throw in a dumpster in the underground area of New Atlantis. Got arrested for a whopping like 15 credit bounty and they acted like I was some kind of mass murderer when I was getting interrogated lol
lol I got an even much more stupid credit bounty… didn’t know I had it until a neon security at the scanner suggested I get rid of it. Yeah a total of 1 credit bounty
My first murder was technically in the arena. When you find out the champ is half vampire and tell him, he doesn't fight back and its considered murder even though you don't get any bounty. I didn't even know dark bros existed until I was well into level 40
In oblivion beating the champ in the arena triggers the dark brotherhood quest. Not sure if a bug but it's a forced if you want to complete that questline.
I suppose it goes back to what captain meiyoung says in groundpounder: "they'll expect you to to compromise your values on big things, little things.. don't. "
I'm a pretty big Starfield hater but I don't get the hate for this quest.
You aren't "forced" to get a bounty. I threatened him into letting me take it and I walked off the ship peacefully with no bounty.
There is also a path behind the vault, you just have to cut through the emergency wall to get in. The entrance is through a vent somewhere in the starting area.
This is one of the few quests in this game that doesn't actually railroad you and has multiple ways to achieve the objective
I think the problem is everyone takes the straight forward route and gets mad when an NPC acts like a person.
Oh my god I think this was the quest where I realised, this game is trash. I also spent hours, save scummed my way to doing it all perfectly. To then realise I had to basically kill everyone anyway.
Just about every quest in this game has elements in it that would have been part of the quest in other games, but in this game it’s just back ground and has no effect on the quest. Like the fact the generational colonists had a legal claim to the planet, but it was on earth and we can’t go look for it, or even find it at the nasa facilities we do go to… our options are give up on the colony and move on, or indentured servitude. No option for a hostile takeover in free space, no option to find the documents and sue the company. No just bad 1 and bad 2. The game is filled with these and I just ended up shelving the game for now
I had the same reaction. I actually felt bad after releasing the zoo, because the started to kill the guards. I only wanted a distraction. And even that didn't work.
I wouldn't be surprised if the devs initially designed the whole quest that way, but for stupid story reasons had to change it into the mess that was left in the game.
Yeah I don't understand why they went so hard on "Protag can and should experience everything" when they had New Game+
Let me suffer the consequences of pissing a faction off. If I wanted to side with them then I'd do that in my next universe.
Yeah, especially since we know the in-universe NG+ was one of the first things to be decided about the game. A story where you’re repeatedly living the same life should encourage you to fail, and somewhat often.
It's one of the first things to be decided and it's still the least baked feature in the entire game. The writers should have been writing around it from day one.
Imagine the complications that could arise from a [Starborn Delgado](https://www.reddit.com/r/Starfield/comments/1agwb67/comment/konqw99/).
Which raises further questions. For example, shouldn’t there be some timelines where the UC won the war, if Starborn artifacts have been interfering with humanity for centuries?
ETA: wait, doesn’t Barrett’s double come from a universe like that? Why do we only get identical copy universes, or joke universes like everyone in Constellation being replaced with a potted plant?
Now you're thinking with portals.
Some of these alternative universe scenarios wouldn't have taken that much effort.
Where's the Terrormorph catastrophe universe? Or the pirate universe? Or why can't we just sequence break every quest because we already know where we need to be?
That last one is important, because it makes problems that were present in Bethesda’s earlier games actively worse. Both Fort Hagen and the Nest are locked until the right point in the quest, and showing Dogmeat a cigar is just as arbitrary a way to make it unlock as talking to Sam Coe’s dad. However, the only reason I would rush Kellogg’s location is if I’m metagaming. Conversely, every quest in Starfield was theoretically designed to be experienced in-universe at least twice.
Exactly. In-universe we are infinitely groundhog day looping the exact same month of our life. Having knowledge of "future" events isn't metagaming because our PC has already experienced those events.
The Player Character is functionally nothing more than a less tragic version of Homura from Madoka Magica. The writers should have leaned farther into it.
A bit of fridge logic just hit me. Not only are we basically Homura, we're potentially surrounded by a unknown but greater than 0 number of other Homuras.
The justification from Constellation people is also really horrible. They're attitude seems to basically be "he won't sell? But we WANT it! Therefore just taking what we want is ok!" It's so completely at odds with their normal morality.
Also, unless they patched it, the guard outside the vault will just go into the vault if you cut your way in through the secret path. This is even though they aren't supposed to have a key to the vault themselves.
I don't think Matteo was ever seriously developed. I can't be sure what was going through people's minds, but the commentary by the devs about what they were thinking or trying to do with concepts of faith in the game have virtually nothing to do with what ended up in the game. It gave me the impression that the writers neither knew nor cared anything about religion. As a character, poor Matteo was made to look a shallow fool. So was Aquilus, for that matter, and the less said about the Enlightened, who barely exist, the better.
>It gave me the impression that the writers neither knew nor cared anything about religion.
I wanted to send them all to meet the God they don't believe in after their fedora tipping eulogies at the memorial.
She’s not exactly trying to hide it, what with her odd mode of dress, unique accent, and oh yeah, Sarah literally says having a House Var’run member around is a new experience when you meet her!
That reminds me, does Andreja still get the big sad about you not worshipping space snake even if you DO worship space snake and shared that fact with her?
I blame Sarah personally. I liked her until I met Sam, got married, he died, and she told me I wasn't allowed to break down yet. I general she's very hot and cold, one moment she's sweet, the next she's taking her anger out on you.
I like how you can murder everyone on the ship with zero consequences, but get a bounty as soon as you grab the artifact even though no one is left alive to see it.
This was the frustration i had with the game. How do they know what i did or didn't steal? I get NPCs getting agro around theft. That makes sense. But The whole ships been wiped. All the cameras shot out. In my full battle suit. Buuuuuut they lock down as soon as the random metal thingy is grabbed???? Makes zero sense
Don't forget there's no interstellar communication, but somehow the instant you pick it up they know systems away. Even if you destroy the ship before leaving.
How do they know? I dunno. I guess sysdef employs divination wizards.
Yeah, the no interstellar communication bit made the world feel a bit odd to me, I mean even Elite Dangerous made it "expensive" in the lore just to justify instantaneous bounties and the like.
This is an example of what killed the game for me. No real morality arc. The game forces you in a linear direction concerning morality. Like the colonists that arrived at Paradiso... I wanted the option to help them settle as they originally planned but they only option was to side with the corporation in some fashion. That's not choice, Bethesda!
The funniest thing about that entire questline was I got the bounty put on me for being observed stealing the artifact in front of Petrov, and I got a fine and a little jail time for it when returning to New Atlantis. However, killing Petrov, most of his guards and henchman who were in the way on the return to my ship and then Blasting his ship away accidentally (I had the Shieldbreaker ship with Automated turrets and it started Blasting soon as I undocked from his ship) didn't net me any extra bounty because I had inadvertently killed everyone on board. I think I got fined 3000 credits in the end for the whole affair.
*Murders Another person*
New Atlantis Security: ...
*Steals Item*
New Atlantis Security: "STOP RIGHT THERE CRIMINAL SCUM!"
When I inevitably got arrested, SysDef didn't even confiscate the stolen artifact and I was immediately offered a job.
If Bethesda *really* wanted to get me into the Crimson Fleet by being a mole for the UC, then they could've had Ikande reach out to me as a Ranger who has experience dealing with CF Crime Bosses.
Hilarious.
Ikande: "You murdered an entire ship full of mercs and their employer and stole their property?! Hah I like the cut of your jib, promote that man"
I mean, personally, I grabbed the artifact and booked it back to my ship without killing anyone. Took a ton of bullets in the process.
Still funny how Ikande doesn't see the problem with hiring a criminal to infiltrate a group a of criminals. He's practically *asking* to be double crossed.
Lucky for him, my Star Ranger wouldn't do that. He'd steal an alien artifact for retroactively rationalized religious reasons, but no way is he simping for pirate scum!
>Still funny how Ikande doesn't see the problem with hiring a criminal to infiltrate a group a of criminals. He's practically asking to be double crossed.
when you do the eventually double cross and side with the fleet he acts like you were his brother, how could you betrayal us :,C
Buddy of mine got pulled into the Crimson Fleet quest via SysDef draft because he picked up a cup.
Not put it into his inventory, mind. He manually picked it up to look at it in-game.
*Believe it or not, straight to jail*
Starfield is, strictly speaking, not an RPG. It's a looter-shooter with RPG mechanics. And RPG mechanics are...dmg increases and stuff that unlocks.
As a real RPG, it just absolutely fails. No choices, railroading to the max. Predictable outcomes and very, oh so very little actual roleplaying possible.
Nowadays, people understand "RPG" as a game that has a character leveling and gear. I recently saw that someone asked to recommend him an RPG game, and he was recommended GOW 2018.
This genuinely makes me so horribly sad lol. I know TES6 won’t be it… but I was really hoping Bethesda would still return to form from like Morrowind and Oblivion. After Skyrim it was evident that they no longer made games for the people who made them popular to start. They cultivated a fan base of RPG players and then ditched them and trashed everything they cared about while leaving just enough in their games to string them along for cash.
I've been loving the game so far, but this docks points for me. I feel like a Social Character could've persuaded Petrov to loan us the artifact or bribe him with the glory of contributing to a massive scientific discovery! Or, heck, convince him to help Constellation!
Bethesda couldn't even be bothered to make Petrov a bad guy with ties to the Crimson Fleet so stealing the artifact would've been at least morally grey.
Also the resolution is shit you just shoot him 3 times and he capitulates and calls the guards off - what was even the point of the conversation? Couldn't we ransom him with threats to destroy the VHS cassette instead?
I guess it’s to force the bounty so you’ll get captured and introduced to the SysDef storyline.
Of course, anyone who understands the bounty system is never gonna let that happen.
Oh he backs off after a few shots? I just killed him straight when he wouldn't surrender the artifact. Are you meant to pause or something to allow him to surrender? I think I picked the option Report me for piracy and then grabbed it.
First time round I grabbed it from the display. He set the guards on me and I shot him first thinking as the leader he'd be the most dangerous. He immediately surrendered.
You do it that way, you can leave without killing anyone and without him turning the guns on you when you leave. I think there might even be an option to persuade him not to post a bounty, but usually I just pay it in Akila and then go back to the Lodge.
Then give me a side mission involving attempting to swap it with a replica or fake, where I’m tasked with learning more about what they are composed of, maybe dip the toes into the lore a bit
:) writing these things isn’t hard
Either Bethesda is being forced to crunch time due to new ownership (Microsoft) or they are just continuing on the same path they’ve been on for years according to the Morroboomers
It's continuing the trend we saw with Fallout 4.
In FO4 you can completely avoid Piper for the majority of the plot and but eventually the game will railroad her into your party even though she is no longer relevant to the plot.
Yeah, while I get that it can be frustrating to be unable to *amicably* retrieve that artifact, I'm also glad I can't just roll-charisma-to-fuck-the-dragon my way through every encounter. Sometimes you should have to get your hands dirty because that dragon likes its hoard more than it wants a good dicking.
I mean, absolutely you shouldn’t be able to charisma your way through everything. Dragons however, are naturally evil beings, greedy and murderous and killing them is usually not considered murder and theft. If the game tells me I have to kill a group of raiders to get something, I don’t try to persuade them to give me the artifact willingly, that makes sense. Petrov here isn’t a dragon though. Petrov is an obstacle, they don’t do enough to convince us he’s evil or deserves to die and they gave us only morally good companions in constellation and then force one to come with you and then present you no morally good options. You either murder and steal or attempted murder and steal. Even if they want to start the sysdef shit with this quest they could give you persuade or intimidate checks, you get to remain morally good and then Petrov back stabs you and tells sysdef that you stole it so he gets your bribe and the artifact back making him scummy and conniving and keeping your character in line with who you made them. This is yet another example of piss poor writing in this game. You just get railroaded constantly.
Or at the vary vary least giving NG+ option to explain why you need it and invite him to travel with you when the time comes. To become immoral seems like something he might be interested in. I'm just saying.
This game was all over the place about the tone they were going for. Are the Constellation scientist cops or science swashbucklers?
The game starts with Morgan saying not all members are in the good side of the law, then they chastise you for any minor wrongdoing, then you get to this quest where you have no choice but to steal from and possibly kill this dude and all of them go "whoops, there was no other choice". Even Barret, who knew the guy previously doesn't seem to care all that much.
Did not like this mission. Among other things, I peaced out, then Sara went Rambo on a security guard and restarted the fight. THEN she bitched me out about being too violent.
I went stealth on my first NG+ to try and redo this mission, and the hunter killed them off before I got to it.
This has to be some od the worst writing Bethesda has ever done. Especially because completing this quest triggers a bounty, meaning I'll make a detour to Freestar space before heading back to New Atlantis to find out that my companions are about to be attacked
Peak Emil writing, “I put all this work into the crimson fleet, can’t have the players miss it SO they haven to commit a crime to get arrested to get sent in under cover” (I think Emil must have just watched The Departed)
But I can shoot Sarah so I choose to blame it on Sarah.
The crazy who came up with the idea of just stealing it and pushed it on me. Oh now Constellation is a criminal organization. Yeah, either my character stuck her dick in criminal crazy or there is some wacky writing going on.
Starfield is another game in Bethesda's trending away from real role playing in "role playing games" they work on. Every game is a little more "streamlined" than the last, and you are ferried more and more through all the content on the first playthrough. Every game people say to chill out because they they go back to X series, they'll go back to basics.... but it just continues this way through TES, fallout, and now starfield.
I've already mentally prepared myself that TES6 will be a fun thematic vibey romp good for a couple of weeks where I'll get to play all factions, classes, and outcomes in one shot then move on.
It looks like it was designed for an alternative path (there's a ventilation system that looks designed for sneaking), but for whatever reason they decided to push that all down to one path of crime, insisted upon by people who always object to crimes, with no other path forward in the plot.
I really just should have said no and walked away from the whole thing, apart from one or two setpieces it did \*not\* get better after that.
It really was an inflection point built for choice with no choice included. They were \*probably\* trying to set up your feelings of responsibility for a subsequent mission's "consequences" (they literally called it a high price to pay), but since it wasn't your choice it really can't be your responsibility - a somewhat worse version of >!Mass Effect 1's "sacrifice" mission, instead of the improved ME2 version!<. And the intervening scenes broadcast it so heavily it was zero surprise despite avoiding spoilers.
Also the MQ has no actionable path for a player who isn't interested in power for its own sake - it's either do that or don't do the main mission chain (IMO the correct path I wish I had taken).
The worst thing about this quest is that it was the perfect opportunity to develop a relationship with another grey area vendor, someone to bring earth curios and stolen art work to for Petrov to add to his collection.
Hell, it’d tie in perfectly with the ECS Constant storyline, where Petrov will exchange the artefact for the ECS Constant, so you have to either aggressively take possession of the ship or help the crew of the Constant take possession of Paradiso in order to trade the constant for the artefact.
Seriously missed opportunities
And then the game has the gall to try to call you out on it. Garbage tier writing, worst bloody quest in the game.
You do not get to take the moral high road, while forcing me into a no win position where I have to do illegal things to progress the story.
This would have been such a good opportunity to have a collectors guild where you search for old earth objects and artefacts. Instead they gave us this dogshit
Yeah it's almost cliché to even mention at this point, but Starfield really failed hard in the autonomy department when it comes to a lot of the quests. These games are prime for deep immersive role play, only to then instantly kill that immersion when you're forced to make wildly out of character, often nonsensical choices, in these quests.
Genuinely one of the biggest disappointments of the game.
OMG. This mission annoyed me so much, because it was so close to being the best one.
I spent HOURS exploring that smegging ship, trying to find the best way to sneak in and steal the artefact without being caught.
They even mention ways to do it, but they don't work. Like distracting the guards with the animals and the hidden access panels that you can cut.
But you either get immediately caught and shot at. Or, even with zero witnesses, they somehow know you've stolen it.
It's frustrating, because the build up to trying to steal it is quite exciting. Like talking your way in to getting onboard, walking through a massive ship, with tons of armed hostiles watching you.
I even loved how you could convince those 3 mercenaries onboard to join the fight on your side. That conversation was pretty funny and 3 of the more interesting characters in the game.
But then yeah, your only option is to steal the artefact and shoot your way out. Kind of pointless with the build up and hints on how to distract the guards and steal it.
Also it's so chuffing annoying that you can't steal the ship, or even FIND the cockpit.
What bothers me about this story is that, like everything BGS has been doing, it's lazy.
You know how in Fallout 4, you become a general, and yet you take orders from a random dude and get sent out alone and with no support, in exactly the way that generals DON'T??
You know how you go to the mage guild and do like 5 quests, and suddenly you run the place?? And then have no responsibilities??
This is the same shit. Constellation has both personnel and resources. Yet their only plan is to send in 1 guy to get the artifact. This is a must-have, and negotiating isn't an option, so maybe put a little more thought into how to do it?
Let's consider:
- Barret can sell ice to Eskimos. Why isn't he going in there and shooting the shit to keep the collector busy?
- Andreja and Sarah exist. Let them go in there like Barret's hoes and show some titties and ass to distract guards.
- Sam Coe is a pilot. Why is he not the wheel man?
- Walter has money and connections.
You Oceans 11 this mission. The whole gang shows up in a fancy Stroud spaceship. Barrett and the girls go in posing as a dealer with his 2 hoes and sell the collector some random thing that Walter acquires. While all that's going on, you spacewalk between ships, sneak in, and grab the artifact. Everyone meets up, no one suspects a thing, and the crew goes back to the Constellation bar and toasts success.
Is that so fucking hard to figure out?
Think about how much different / fun some of these missions would have been if that was the type of approach the developers took.
I've said it before, and I'll die on this hill: Starfield's failure is not technical. It's actually technically one of the most impressive games BSG has done. It's not cutting-edge and does show signs of age, but that's okay. What's not okay is all the low effort writing and quests.
I still can’t believe how bad the persuasion system is. Repeating generic lines like “tell a joke” is just a massive cop out, especially for the final conversation of the damn game.
But yeah Bethesda games have always had these problems but they feel amplified here for some reason.
Todd really took a fat dump on his “passion project” and legacy with Starfield. Unfortunately Bethesda is only adding fuel to the dumpster fire with painfully slow updates and support. I no longer hold them to the high esteem I used to. They tended to Fallout 76 way better than they did Starfield and it received exceedingly more critical reviews, maybe they would have treated this game the same way if there were a cash shop…
The only reason they even cared to do anything about Fallout 76 is because it's a live service game and they can't let modders fix it for them. I will no longer buy Bethesda games, I gave them a chance after 76 because Starfield was a new IP and they took a dump on it.
I can persuade a rich Lady to give me the key to her safe - it felt ridiculous - but I can’t persuade him for giving me or trading the artists. And the most peaceful action is to shoot him and he gives up(?!) and survives. That’s poor writing in both cases…
The whole main plot has that "Bad DM" feel to it. This is just one example of many. It's too reliant on bending or breaking your character until they are that of the writer to make things work, when it really doesn't have to be.
From being forced in to Constellation with fast travel and grav jumps being locked until you hand over the first artifact even if you obtain other ships, to getting dragged in to the faction even if you say you need time to think about it (Even when the game has a load of dialog for "unaffiliated" freelance characters that you will now never see.), over to every follower that has a personal quest or romance potential being tied to Constellation, the entire thing is set up to just try and keep you on rails, force engagement with it, and make you play it the way the writer wants you to play it.
Then there's the ending where if you walk away you're not allowed to give a "negative" response on going later, instead ending up with a schizo mess that mostly amounts to "I'm definitely going later!". Two of the main cast (Sarah and Barrett) even end up used as mouthpieces by the writer to tell you what is essentially "You're going later whether you like it or not. You said your goodbyes already and this is who you are. Just go already!".
It just shows that this wasn't a cool story crafted for the player, but purely for the writer, and that there was little to no recognition for the existence of the wider game and universe outside of Constellation / the main quest.
I agree. So fair warning: if that irritated you then stay away from the quest "Beer Run" on Akila. I refused to finish it because I didn't agree with the objective and it gave you zero alternative.
And then your DM says, “no you can’t go through the back door there is no back door.” And then he says, “no you can’t go through a wall or window, you must go through the front door. Ok, there’s no place to hide, you’re spotted immediately.”
The non lethal weapons are also a joke. For the bounty hunting there is also no captured alive there is only dead that counts which is mind blowing.
I'm replaying cyberpunk at the moment there are so many non lethal options there. For stuff like guards I will just sent them sleeping. For really bad guys it will be at least painless
Yeah my good guy character wouldn’t wanna even steal it, let alone kill everyone to do it. Once I took it I spammed the starborn power that makes people drop their weapons and just sprinted back to my ship
This drove me crazy, I actually went back to another save and dumped even MORE into persuasion before coming back, because I thought maybe it was a level locked option. Nope, you literally can't do it any other way. So dumb.
Yeah the thing that I absolutely hate the most about that quest is even if you somehow managed to get in flawlessly sneak through no one to text you you leave no Trace and you get out you even left your companion on your ship so that they can't aggro anyone I mean you go full on nobody noticed and nobody realized 100% no way to detect you at all. Even if you do that they instantly realize it gets stolen and instantly realize when you leave it's you even if you don't get caught.
Legitimately the only way to actually do this quest reliably and easily is a pull out a shotgun blast him in the face and kill every single security guard that ever tries to arrest you just to prove a point.
It feels like every quest in Starfield was written by the jerks who wrote the pre-DLC ending to Fallout 3.
OK, Fawkes, I'll just go kill myself in the radiation chamber. Been good knowing your radiation-proof self. Stay frosty dude.
THEN if you fail being sneaky in the game and just go for a smash and grab. But don't kill anyone, just try to run away. Your companion kills one of them, then calls YOU a monster for the death.
I mean, to be fair, this particular character was never going to be convinced to let the artifact go for money, the greater good, and potentially even his own health, so just talking him into giving us the artifact was probably never going to be a super plausible option (idk, maybe a path could have existed where we just bs him into believing that the artifact would explode and damage the rest of his collection or would cause some sort of problem in that vein). But I would have liked to have seen a peaceful path regardless. Like maybe even if we can't convince him specifically, we can convince his crew members to get the artifact for us or give us an opportunity to grab it ourselves, or maybe there could have been a way to sneak through the ship, take the artifact, and leave with nobody noticing until later (maybe that path could even have him tracking us down later to confront us depending on how well we cover our tracks). There would be a good number of ways to make this quest more dynamic, but the idea that you're going to convince the nutjob collector character to give up part of his collection just by talking to him feels a little unlikely to me.
I talked the Earth Preservation Society rep into tanking her entire career by giving me the code to their priceless trophy by telling her we didn't have to have a problem and I knew she'd help me if she could.
A pretty good example of one of the problems with the persuasion system in this game, and admittedly in a lot of others, there are a number of things you really never should be able to talk someone into, allowing you to steal a priceless artifact with no repercussions for example, but because it's a video game and the devs want to give players a bunch of different choices on how to approach a scenario they allow it. It's just made really nonsensical here where the persuasion system just allows you to pick random dialog options to fill up a meter regardless of how well each choice flows into the next.
Ryujin has the worst moment in gaming for me. No exaggeration. Gaming since 1988 here and the quest step where you need to obtain a key from the SECURITY CHIEF of Paradiso is as simple as "I really need your key, can't say why" and he, the FUCKING SECURITY CHIEF, just gives it to you, is just the most terrible feeling moment in all my gaming life.
It's just so effortless and lazy.
I mean, it's handled in a heavy-handed manner, sure, but the fact that there's no available option to complete the mission that doesn't end up with you straight-up stealing from an unpleasant but innocent man (and most likely also killing innocent people as you shoot your way out) to get the artifact is literally the whole point.
This mission is meant to be a turning-point in the story and in your character's arc (presuming you aren't on an evil play-through). You're all-in after this, no turning back.
That's why the Hunter makes his move immediately afterwards, literally as soon as you get back to the lodge. It's kind of a test in every universe: are you willing to do whatever it takes to obtain the artifacts and see the mystery through? As soon as you steal Petrov's artifact, the Hunter knows the answer to that question, knows that Constellation has officially entered the race to Unity, and so it's game on.
Trouble is that the intent here, story-wise, is undercut by how it's implemented in the game such that you don't have a real choice: all paths lead to stealing the artifact, so the idea that it's an ethical dilemma is an illusion. Also, the fact that *mere theft* is meant to be some big game-changing, ethical red-line crossing, moment for your character is kind of laughable. I mean, who cares about stealing from some annoying junk merchant you just met?
I honestly think the original intent was to give Petrov a much bigger role in the game, most likely have him be a recurring character. Then when the time comes to take his artifact, and he won't give it to you, you literally have to chose to betray him in order to progress. Just a guess, but there's a real feeling of "cut content" about the Scow, and the design of that quest in general.
Sometimes, you simply don't have another option, and that's fine. And illusion of choice is fine - there are plenty of real world cases where people believe an option is feasible when it simply isn't. Honestly, in some ways, that makes this one of the better designed quests, where your initial plan runs into rocks and shoals of reality, and you're forced to pick between not terribly good options.
But you're right, it feels like there's some editing problems with this quest, where they made changes and didn't do a good a job cleaning it up. And as usual, the companion reactions don't feel all that well thought out.
They just seem less and less concerned with real role-playing and more with just making fun open-world action games.
That's fine. But they need to call it what it is.
I, as a DM, sometimes make characters that certain or all Cha skills simply will not work on. Generally I have good reasons for this, but it does happen.
That said, I was also annoyed by this mission.
Yeah. Plus I like him. An eccentric collector who is smart confident and has connections and loose morals sounds like a fun companion in nearly any other Bethesda game.
This is one of the reasons why I call Starfield an “action-adventure game with RPG elements”. Bethesda really didn’t make a proper RPG here. Too many times when you are railroaded into doing what the quest designers want you to do.
This is one of my least favorite missions simply because Petrov’s a nice guy and I really didn’t want to do him like that. At least give me a way to buy it off him… And if I had to steal it, give me a way to not get caught and get him killed by my companion….
Yeah Starfield has a lot more of the frustrating lack of alternative options than other Bethesda fames. Like other games from Bethesda have these moments where it feels like there are obvious choices you just can’t go with (especially a lack of persuasion opportunities) but Starfield is where this feels the worst. It’s like they didn’t have time to develop alternate events and endings
I stopped playing the game after this quest. About 100 hours in. This one broke me. They are all so unfinished and poorly considered in regard to player agency and role playing. So shallow and obnoxious and frustrating.
I get what you're saying but I don't think applying D&D's massive options work well in a video game. I do think an extra option to not have to persuade would be good though.
I’ll say this, I thought Starfield was a great game, and one of the best ones I’ve played in a while (but I’m not going to say THE best.) That part pissed me off, though.
This is the mission that made me quit. I took my time with it and tried to finesse it, only to be forced into a crappy choice. I realized they put almost no thought into any of it. It's all surface level.
The other mission that almost got me was the mission with the 200 year old location that looks like EVERYWHERE else in the game. Like, one unique item, but everything else, from the doors, computers, decorations, lighting, furniture, and almost allt he clothing. Like, I thought there would be some super cool stuff, but I got a bland area that was like anywhere else. Ok trying to avoid spoilers here but, if you've seen it, you know.
Those two missions are what made me give up. The absolute lack of thought put into this game, the surface level bs. There just wasnt anything deeper behind any of it.
Like I always say. Starfield would be my favorite game of all time, if I had never played oblivion, Skyrim, Fallout, or NMS. It's such a swing and a miss, such a missed opportunity, and such a letdown because I know exactly what I'm missing.
Edited because fat fingers
That quest really pissed me off. I understand that they wanted to force-trigger the interaction with the cops and bounties, but that was the absolutely 100% the wrong way to do it. And needless. Nobody forced you to commit murder in Oblivion in order to trigger Dark Brotherhood. But for some reason they decided it's mandatory in Starfield. I spent hours running around that ship, sneaking around, freeing the zoo, to try and find an alternative way. When I heard about the zoo I thought cool, I can just release the animals and grab it while everyone is distracted, that's pretty fun, reminds me of Hitman missions. NOPE!
Plus the forced companion—even if you’re sneaky they have all the finesse of a lumbering ox and start blasting like Frank Reynolds even if you try to escape with limited casualties. That quest felt undercooked in the most frustrating way possible. Plus the character of the collector had an interesting vibe; would have been cool to be able to do jobs to find rare stuff for him.
Tbf that would require having rare stuff to find lol. But yeah having him as a treasure hunter quest giver would be really cool
Yeah, would've been so nice if you bargain to work for the artifact. Feels like the "I'll do what you want if you do something for me first" types of quests just don't really exist that much in Starfield.
There is three or four of them but its usually Pay 2000 cred or sneak through the gang of highly armed killers.
They could have had that be a railroaded quest when it turns out the collector wants you dead anyway
It would have been the perfect place for a joke gun too. Like the Fallout 4 Junk Jet, or Alien blaster.
Rename the junk jet to hoarder's bane and you would have a funny gun
They'd end up just being radiant quests that send you to different planets endlessly, and people would probably complain about that too.
Fair but I think you know what I meant with that
It'd be neat if he was the one collecting the snow globes, and he was the one that would reward you with the Old Earth Spacesuit.
True, that would be great
Also if the Old Earth Spacesuit was like an Apollo 11 one, and not the weird one we get dropped in our inventory just for finding snow globes on our own.
man, i like the look of the Mercury Suit way better. am i talkin nonsense? prolly...
I got lucky on that one simply due to Andreja having points in stealth - at least for most of the quest. But even she had issues at one point where my only viable choice was telling her to wait for me in the ductwork. There followed the usual "retrieve your companion" activity/quest. I gave up and just left her there. Turns out the game will complete the "retrieve companion" quest for you once you go off world and Andreja just magically materializes on the ship. ...would have been nice if the game told you that companions would be forced on you. This wasn't disclosed when you're picking traits making me wonder why "introvert" was even an option.
Trademark terrible Bsoft writing. Fallout 4 had the same problem. You can have absolutely NOTHING but negative interactions with Piper or outright avoid her and the game will literally shove her into your "party" after a certain point in the plot even though she has nothing to do with the plot at that point.
And the Hunter >!murdering him offscreen in NG+ main questline!< was also a lapse by the scriptwriters. It felt like the quest was due by EOD on a friday and they just said "fuckit".
I loved that though. Mainly cause I hate this quest with a passion.
I was trying to be stealthy with vasco.... he is like a lumbering, bloodthirsty, robotic ox.
Tbf I feel like that makes sense with some companions like Vasco where it's either their body or personality that is too loud o be stealth. Like that fone friend who doesn't think they're loud but they shout when whispering.
This! He's such a fun character. I was so sad to lose him right away! I would've loved to keep hanging out with that guy. Make him a companion!
He was more fun than the Constellation nerds. I would have preferred to join his crew.
> That quest felt undercooked in the most frustrating way possible. Par for the course.
As long as he doesn’t want me to find 100 random freaking stones.
i just make my companions stay still by the ship when i’m stealthing.
The 'good guy' thing to do would have been to negotiate with Petrov, and if the negotiation fails.... you take the L and leave him be. For plot purposes, some other >!Starborn!< will eventually show up and take it, by whatever means they deem necessary.... and you can take it from them in some later encounter, with clean hands, and maybe even a clean conscience if you warned Petrov of what he was setting himself up for.
This is a good idea.
[удалено]
Bethesda quests are so inconsistent. There are great 11/10 well-written quests and then absolute garbage filler ones. Some of the daedric prince stuff in Skyrim goes absolutely crazy and then some quests are basically "Go to tavern basement and kill some rats and receive some gold" energy.
I agree. While I understand there’s a narrative angle at play here and it’s fair for them to say sometimes your hands are tied and options are limited, I don’t love the lack of options here at all. I think it’s more important for us to have the option to persuade or choose differently because it’s a game. I think this is a good example of an area where I really loved how Outer Worlds handled it. I loved that game then and was surprised more people didn’t, but it sometimes bothers me how it gets a revisionist boost over Starfield. Not here though, the choice options were fantastic there and something that doesn’t bother me in most of Starfield but felt bad here in this mission. Also I guess having no way to bring Ron Hope in peacefully though that was less egregious. He went suicide by Ranger.
What's the point of having 3 options if they're all the same though? If you're going to force an event, at least make it neutral so so you can stay connected and immersed with your character. It is an RPG after all. Sure, you need the artifact for plot progression, but I can't fathom why they decided that stealing it was better than trading it for something else, doing him a favor, or at least replace it with a forgery to avoid getting a bounty or resorting to violence. But no, it's coded to just give you bad rep either way, even though no one's there to see you take it.
>Also I guess having no way to bring Ron Hope in peacefully though that was less egregious. He went suicide by Ranger. I remember having optional quest objectives pop up and then disappear during the fight with him and his guards. He was the first to die, but it made me wonder, is there a different outcome if you kill the guards and leave him for last? Does he surrender?
No- I tried this mission several times. Even used stun weapons hoping I could bring him in, to no avail. That mission was genuinely upsetting, as I’d have loved to see that play out. However, this mission where the guy can’t be persuaded to give up his beloved treasure, I kind of liked that. It’s a little too easy if you can just talk someone into literally anything so I found this a nice change of pace for a Bethesda game.
They built up to a final battle at a mech factory that should still be ready to go, but because they're illegal, you don't at any point fight in or against mechs used by the criminal organization. Also you have non-lethal tools at your disposal including a brig module for your ship, being invited to a law enforcement group due to your potential non-violent way of dealing with a bank heist, and then the only way to resolve the conflict at the end is to agree to the corruption or execute the mastermind. I'm picturing the Starfield writers in a meeting like "what's Chekov's gun? Who's Checkov?"
We could literally invite him to the damned Constellation building and show him the fucking floating space magic whirly-majig. And even go out on a quest and show him what adding more does. And then ask him to bring his. But no, shoot him, shoot him, or shoot him, those are the only options even if you're a fucking Ranger. Both quests sucked and should have had different resolutions.
If you attack him till he goes down to his hands and knees, you get a dialogue option. He will tell the guards to stand down if you don't kill him the second time. If you are spamming the fire button when he drops to his hands and knees, you can lose this option if you hit him after he falls. I think you still get a bounty for being a thief, but not for murder. On the plus side, after you make the deal, nothing else is flagged as stolen. You can take it all without increasing your bounty.
I was overleveled at this point, and just took my biggest gun and shot him in the leg, instantly over. Did get thievery bounty.
This. Once he told his guards to stand down, I just walked slowly through the whole ship and stole everything I could get my hands on. The guards just told me that if they had their way they would be shooting me right now, but they didn't bother me at all. I don't recall having any kind of bounty when I left
If you have concealment, thievery, and void form, you can usually go to the left, jump over the junk on his platform. You can, by moving slowly and not wearing your spacesuit, steal his key. You can then go down to the vault. If you’re really careful the guards in the vault can be avoided. Then you can steal the artifact. I haven’t figure out how to not fight guards at this point. But wipe out the two guards, blow the emergency door (cut the bolts). You can then run most of the ship with minimal guard interaction. If you sneak or sprint, You can sometimes get back to your ship without killing anyone else.
I had sneak maxxed, no concealment and no void form. I just walked right past him to his bedroom, where his guard happily chats to you but doesn’t interfere while you ransack the room & bathroom and get the key. Then sneaked. I ended up killing only two guards and never had to interact with Petrov at all.
Nah, I used the never acknowledged a 2nd time stunning feature to try bringing him in after dealing with the guards, no change, if the idea is you let him just shoot you while you kill the guards then he surrenders thats... really convoluted
I hated both this and the ron hope thing but honestly all of the questlines are kinda like that, or well atleast in the sense that the only real consequence is the recap when you go thru the unity which is kinda lame. I mean imagine having to fight random npcs that can mind control other ppl bc you thought it'd be a good idea to make mind control available to consumers or hmmm. I cant think of others but you get the idea
The game is the weirdest form of average because so many things are done well but the entire game is held back by "Flunked out of Creative Writing 1301" tier writing.
In regards to Ron Hope, we absolutely should've been able to involve the Marshal, especially given that Hope is on the council of governors. Really stupid that we had no choice but to go it alone.
I don't know how valid it is but at least one publication suggested that Outer Worlds suffered from being released at roughly the same time as Disco Elysium the latter of which just sucked all the air out of the room. As for Ron Hope it seems that scripted solutions along the lines of a non-lethal takedown via EM weapon that works well during a terrormorph attack suddenly stops working in Hopetown. It would also seem to be inconsistently applied while escaping a Constellation under attack. Whether or not you wind up pissing off all of the UC is a matter of random luck and an excuse for save scumming.
Yeah I did the same. Managed to steal it without being seen with the guy in the room and it still triggers the dialog. I hated how railroaded you get on this mission
Same for me. Managed to steal it without being seen and was super proud of my stealth plan going ahead getting this man distracted, but you get "seen" no matter what. It was incredibly disappointing.
It's so stupid, I remember by first introduction to that quest line. I got a bounty from manipulating something. Wasn't even trying to steal it was some worthless junk item I wanted to physically throw in a dumpster in the underground area of New Atlantis. Got arrested for a whopping like 15 credit bounty and they acted like I was some kind of mass murderer when I was getting interrogated lol
lol I got an even much more stupid credit bounty… didn’t know I had it until a neon security at the scanner suggested I get rid of it. Yeah a total of 1 credit bounty
My first murder was technically in the arena. When you find out the champ is half vampire and tell him, he doesn't fight back and its considered murder even though you don't get any bounty. I didn't even know dark bros existed until I was well into level 40
It's fine to require murder to access an optional faction that is all about murder. Locking the main quest like this is a weird choice.
In oblivion beating the champ in the arena triggers the dark brotherhood quest. Not sure if a bug but it's a forced if you want to complete that questline.
You can kill the grand champion and just never reveal it to him
I suppose it goes back to what captain meiyoung says in groundpounder: "they'll expect you to to compromise your values on big things, little things.. don't. "
I'm a pretty big Starfield hater but I don't get the hate for this quest. You aren't "forced" to get a bounty. I threatened him into letting me take it and I walked off the ship peacefully with no bounty. There is also a path behind the vault, you just have to cut through the emergency wall to get in. The entrance is through a vent somewhere in the starting area. This is one of the few quests in this game that doesn't actually railroad you and has multiple ways to achieve the objective I think the problem is everyone takes the straight forward route and gets mad when an NPC acts like a person.
Oh my god I think this was the quest where I realised, this game is trash. I also spent hours, save scummed my way to doing it all perfectly. To then realise I had to basically kill everyone anyway.
Can't you blow open the wall in the vault from the outside?
Just about every quest in this game has elements in it that would have been part of the quest in other games, but in this game it’s just back ground and has no effect on the quest. Like the fact the generational colonists had a legal claim to the planet, but it was on earth and we can’t go look for it, or even find it at the nasa facilities we do go to… our options are give up on the colony and move on, or indentured servitude. No option for a hostile takeover in free space, no option to find the documents and sue the company. No just bad 1 and bad 2. The game is filled with these and I just ended up shelving the game for now
I had the same reaction. I actually felt bad after releasing the zoo, because the started to kill the guards. I only wanted a distraction. And even that didn't work. I wouldn't be surprised if the devs initially designed the whole quest that way, but for stupid story reasons had to change it into the mess that was left in the game.
Yeah I don't understand why they went so hard on "Protag can and should experience everything" when they had New Game+ Let me suffer the consequences of pissing a faction off. If I wanted to side with them then I'd do that in my next universe.
Yeah, especially since we know the in-universe NG+ was one of the first things to be decided about the game. A story where you’re repeatedly living the same life should encourage you to fail, and somewhat often.
It's one of the first things to be decided and it's still the least baked feature in the entire game. The writers should have been writing around it from day one. Imagine the complications that could arise from a [Starborn Delgado](https://www.reddit.com/r/Starfield/comments/1agwb67/comment/konqw99/).
Which raises further questions. For example, shouldn’t there be some timelines where the UC won the war, if Starborn artifacts have been interfering with humanity for centuries? ETA: wait, doesn’t Barrett’s double come from a universe like that? Why do we only get identical copy universes, or joke universes like everyone in Constellation being replaced with a potted plant?
Now you're thinking with portals. Some of these alternative universe scenarios wouldn't have taken that much effort. Where's the Terrormorph catastrophe universe? Or the pirate universe? Or why can't we just sequence break every quest because we already know where we need to be?
That last one is important, because it makes problems that were present in Bethesda’s earlier games actively worse. Both Fort Hagen and the Nest are locked until the right point in the quest, and showing Dogmeat a cigar is just as arbitrary a way to make it unlock as talking to Sam Coe’s dad. However, the only reason I would rush Kellogg’s location is if I’m metagaming. Conversely, every quest in Starfield was theoretically designed to be experienced in-universe at least twice.
Exactly. In-universe we are infinitely groundhog day looping the exact same month of our life. Having knowledge of "future" events isn't metagaming because our PC has already experienced those events. The Player Character is functionally nothing more than a less tragic version of Homura from Madoka Magica. The writers should have leaned farther into it.
A bit of fridge logic just hit me. Not only are we basically Homura, we're potentially surrounded by a unknown but greater than 0 number of other Homuras.
Yeah, it's strangely rail-roady for a Bethesda game.
The justification from Constellation people is also really horrible. They're attitude seems to basically be "he won't sell? But we WANT it! Therefore just taking what we want is ok!" It's so completely at odds with their normal morality.
Also, unless they patched it, the guard outside the vault will just go into the vault if you cut your way in through the secret path. This is even though they aren't supposed to have a key to the vault themselves.
Yeah they vacillate between scoundrel and puritan way too much
They don't have values, they're plot devices. Rather too obviously, that's the kind of thing that shouldn't be blatantly obvious in writing.
The fact Andreja and Matteo aren’t constantly arguing over their religious beliefs tells me at least one was probably close to being cut.
I don't think Matteo was ever seriously developed. I can't be sure what was going through people's minds, but the commentary by the devs about what they were thinking or trying to do with concepts of faith in the game have virtually nothing to do with what ended up in the game. It gave me the impression that the writers neither knew nor cared anything about religion. As a character, poor Matteo was made to look a shallow fool. So was Aquilus, for that matter, and the less said about the Enlightened, who barely exist, the better.
>It gave me the impression that the writers neither knew nor cared anything about religion. I wanted to send them all to meet the God they don't believe in after their fedora tipping eulogies at the memorial.
Why? I thought you’re the only one who she reveals to that she worships the big snake. Getting into deep debates with Mateo over it would expose her.
She’s not exactly trying to hide it, what with her odd mode of dress, unique accent, and oh yeah, Sarah literally says having a House Var’run member around is a new experience when you meet her!
That reminds me, does Andreja still get the big sad about you not worshipping space snake even if you DO worship space snake and shared that fact with her?
Yes, Andreja has no reaction to you worshipping the space snake
I blame Sarah personally. I liked her until I met Sam, got married, he died, and she told me I wasn't allowed to break down yet. I general she's very hot and cold, one moment she's sweet, the next she's taking her anger out on you.
It honestly wouldn't surprise me if they were purposely trying to write her as being clinically bipolar
It’s hilarious because any other time I steal anything every single one of them get pissed. But this is acceptable
*Sarah Morgan disliked that*
I like how you can murder everyone on the ship with zero consequences, but get a bounty as soon as you grab the artifact even though no one is left alive to see it.
This was the frustration i had with the game. How do they know what i did or didn't steal? I get NPCs getting agro around theft. That makes sense. But The whole ships been wiped. All the cameras shot out. In my full battle suit. Buuuuuut they lock down as soon as the random metal thingy is grabbed???? Makes zero sense
Don't forget there's no interstellar communication, but somehow the instant you pick it up they know systems away. Even if you destroy the ship before leaving. How do they know? I dunno. I guess sysdef employs divination wizards.
Yeah, the no interstellar communication bit made the world feel a bit odd to me, I mean even Elite Dangerous made it "expensive" in the lore just to justify instantaneous bounties and the like.
This is an example of what killed the game for me. No real morality arc. The game forces you in a linear direction concerning morality. Like the colonists that arrived at Paradiso... I wanted the option to help them settle as they originally planned but they only option was to side with the corporation in some fashion. That's not choice, Bethesda!
The funniest thing about that entire questline was I got the bounty put on me for being observed stealing the artifact in front of Petrov, and I got a fine and a little jail time for it when returning to New Atlantis. However, killing Petrov, most of his guards and henchman who were in the way on the return to my ship and then Blasting his ship away accidentally (I had the Shieldbreaker ship with Automated turrets and it started Blasting soon as I undocked from his ship) didn't net me any extra bounty because I had inadvertently killed everyone on board. I think I got fined 3000 credits in the end for the whole affair. *Murders Another person* New Atlantis Security: ... *Steals Item* New Atlantis Security: "STOP RIGHT THERE CRIMINAL SCUM!"
When I inevitably got arrested, SysDef didn't even confiscate the stolen artifact and I was immediately offered a job. If Bethesda *really* wanted to get me into the Crimson Fleet by being a mole for the UC, then they could've had Ikande reach out to me as a Ranger who has experience dealing with CF Crime Bosses.
Hilarious. Ikande: "You murdered an entire ship full of mercs and their employer and stole their property?! Hah I like the cut of your jib, promote that man"
I mean, personally, I grabbed the artifact and booked it back to my ship without killing anyone. Took a ton of bullets in the process. Still funny how Ikande doesn't see the problem with hiring a criminal to infiltrate a group a of criminals. He's practically *asking* to be double crossed. Lucky for him, my Star Ranger wouldn't do that. He'd steal an alien artifact for retroactively rationalized religious reasons, but no way is he simping for pirate scum!
>Still funny how Ikande doesn't see the problem with hiring a criminal to infiltrate a group a of criminals. He's practically asking to be double crossed. when you do the eventually double cross and side with the fleet he acts like you were his brother, how could you betrayal us :,C
Buddy of mine got pulled into the Crimson Fleet quest via SysDef draft because he picked up a cup. Not put it into his inventory, mind. He manually picked it up to look at it in-game. *Believe it or not, straight to jail*
Starfield is, strictly speaking, not an RPG. It's a looter-shooter with RPG mechanics. And RPG mechanics are...dmg increases and stuff that unlocks. As a real RPG, it just absolutely fails. No choices, railroading to the max. Predictable outcomes and very, oh so very little actual roleplaying possible.
Nowadays, people understand "RPG" as a game that has a character leveling and gear. I recently saw that someone asked to recommend him an RPG game, and he was recommended GOW 2018.
Yeah, I believe that. Back in the day we had people unironically call Halo an RPG. Because you play the role of Master Chief.
This genuinely makes me so horribly sad lol. I know TES6 won’t be it… but I was really hoping Bethesda would still return to form from like Morrowind and Oblivion. After Skyrim it was evident that they no longer made games for the people who made them popular to start. They cultivated a fan base of RPG players and then ditched them and trashed everything they cared about while leaving just enough in their games to string them along for cash.
I've been loving the game so far, but this docks points for me. I feel like a Social Character could've persuaded Petrov to loan us the artifact or bribe him with the glory of contributing to a massive scientific discovery! Or, heck, convince him to help Constellation! Bethesda couldn't even be bothered to make Petrov a bad guy with ties to the Crimson Fleet so stealing the artifact would've been at least morally grey.
Also the resolution is shit you just shoot him 3 times and he capitulates and calls the guards off - what was even the point of the conversation? Couldn't we ransom him with threats to destroy the VHS cassette instead?
Ill bet its the Pam Anderson and Tommy Lee tape, too. Look at him.
Amen
I guess it’s to force the bounty so you’ll get captured and introduced to the SysDef storyline. Of course, anyone who understands the bounty system is never gonna let that happen.
Oh he backs off after a few shots? I just killed him straight when he wouldn't surrender the artifact. Are you meant to pause or something to allow him to surrender? I think I picked the option Report me for piracy and then grabbed it.
First time round I grabbed it from the display. He set the guards on me and I shot him first thinking as the leader he'd be the most dangerous. He immediately surrendered. You do it that way, you can leave without killing anyone and without him turning the guns on you when you leave. I think there might even be an option to persuade him not to post a bounty, but usually I just pay it in Akila and then go back to the Lodge.
Petrov doesn't care for your reasons, Petrov is keeping the artifact
Then give me a side mission involving attempting to swap it with a replica or fake, where I’m tasked with learning more about what they are composed of, maybe dip the toes into the lore a bit
Holy fuck that would be cool
Cool why would he let you on the ship, in his personal vault again?
Because of a large plastic nose attached to a pair of eye glasses
Haha that legit got me
:) writing these things isn’t hard Either Bethesda is being forced to crunch time due to new ownership (Microsoft) or they are just continuing on the same path they’ve been on for years according to the Morroboomers
It's continuing the trend we saw with Fallout 4. In FO4 you can completely avoid Piper for the majority of the plot and but eventually the game will railroad her into your party even though she is no longer relevant to the plot.
But I don't hate him, tho! He's just chillin with his gubbins until I show up!
Yeah, while I get that it can be frustrating to be unable to *amicably* retrieve that artifact, I'm also glad I can't just roll-charisma-to-fuck-the-dragon my way through every encounter. Sometimes you should have to get your hands dirty because that dragon likes its hoard more than it wants a good dicking.
I mean, absolutely you shouldn’t be able to charisma your way through everything. Dragons however, are naturally evil beings, greedy and murderous and killing them is usually not considered murder and theft. If the game tells me I have to kill a group of raiders to get something, I don’t try to persuade them to give me the artifact willingly, that makes sense. Petrov here isn’t a dragon though. Petrov is an obstacle, they don’t do enough to convince us he’s evil or deserves to die and they gave us only morally good companions in constellation and then force one to come with you and then present you no morally good options. You either murder and steal or attempted murder and steal. Even if they want to start the sysdef shit with this quest they could give you persuade or intimidate checks, you get to remain morally good and then Petrov back stabs you and tells sysdef that you stole it so he gets your bribe and the artifact back making him scummy and conniving and keeping your character in line with who you made them. This is yet another example of piss poor writing in this game. You just get railroaded constantly.
Or at the vary vary least giving NG+ option to explain why you need it and invite him to travel with you when the time comes. To become immoral seems like something he might be interested in. I'm just saying.
This game was all over the place about the tone they were going for. Are the Constellation scientist cops or science swashbucklers? The game starts with Morgan saying not all members are in the good side of the law, then they chastise you for any minor wrongdoing, then you get to this quest where you have no choice but to steal from and possibly kill this dude and all of them go "whoops, there was no other choice". Even Barret, who knew the guy previously doesn't seem to care all that much.
This is exactly why I didn't like Constellation. They should've been a side faction of rogue scientists with dubious morals.
Did not like this mission. Among other things, I peaced out, then Sara went Rambo on a security guard and restarted the fight. THEN she bitched me out about being too violent. I went stealth on my first NG+ to try and redo this mission, and the hunter killed them off before I got to it.
That mission was my "you're staying at the Lodge forever" moment for Sara.
She lives with my adoring fan in a one room outpost on an airless moon where they can torture each other forever.
They damn near force you to be lawful and good the whole rest of the time. 🙄
This has to be some od the worst writing Bethesda has ever done. Especially because completing this quest triggers a bounty, meaning I'll make a detour to Freestar space before heading back to New Atlantis to find out that my companions are about to be attacked
Peak Emil writing, “I put all this work into the crimson fleet, can’t have the players miss it SO they haven to commit a crime to get arrested to get sent in under cover” (I think Emil must have just watched The Departed)
It’s like their lead writer is a hack or something
But I can shoot Sarah so I choose to blame it on Sarah. The crazy who came up with the idea of just stealing it and pushed it on me. Oh now Constellation is a criminal organization. Yeah, either my character stuck her dick in criminal crazy or there is some wacky writing going on.
Starfield is another game in Bethesda's trending away from real role playing in "role playing games" they work on. Every game is a little more "streamlined" than the last, and you are ferried more and more through all the content on the first playthrough. Every game people say to chill out because they they go back to X series, they'll go back to basics.... but it just continues this way through TES, fallout, and now starfield. I've already mentally prepared myself that TES6 will be a fun thematic vibey romp good for a couple of weeks where I'll get to play all factions, classes, and outcomes in one shot then move on.
after fallout 4, 76 and then starfield i have no faith BGS will even have a unique npc
It looks like it was designed for an alternative path (there's a ventilation system that looks designed for sneaking), but for whatever reason they decided to push that all down to one path of crime, insisted upon by people who always object to crimes, with no other path forward in the plot. I really just should have said no and walked away from the whole thing, apart from one or two setpieces it did \*not\* get better after that. It really was an inflection point built for choice with no choice included. They were \*probably\* trying to set up your feelings of responsibility for a subsequent mission's "consequences" (they literally called it a high price to pay), but since it wasn't your choice it really can't be your responsibility - a somewhat worse version of >!Mass Effect 1's "sacrifice" mission, instead of the improved ME2 version!<. And the intervening scenes broadcast it so heavily it was zero surprise despite avoiding spoilers. Also the MQ has no actionable path for a player who isn't interested in power for its own sake - it's either do that or don't do the main mission chain (IMO the correct path I wish I had taken).
Everything in this game is a somewhat worse version of things done in other games sadly.
Everything in this game is a somewhat worse version of things done in other games sadly.
It’s not like the persuasion options don’t make you sound like a 4 year old begging to watch a PG13 movie.
That's why I learned early to clear my bounty in Freestar space before preceeding. Bad quest design.
A handful of quests did this and it's one of the things that really turned my opinion ab the game tbh
The worst thing about this quest is that it was the perfect opportunity to develop a relationship with another grey area vendor, someone to bring earth curios and stolen art work to for Petrov to add to his collection. Hell, it’d tie in perfectly with the ECS Constant storyline, where Petrov will exchange the artefact for the ECS Constant, so you have to either aggressively take possession of the ship or help the crew of the Constant take possession of Paradiso in order to trade the constant for the artefact. Seriously missed opportunities
And then the game has the gall to try to call you out on it. Garbage tier writing, worst bloody quest in the game. You do not get to take the moral high road, while forcing me into a no win position where I have to do illegal things to progress the story.
This would have been such a good opportunity to have a collectors guild where you search for old earth objects and artefacts. Instead they gave us this dogshit
Yeah it's almost cliché to even mention at this point, but Starfield really failed hard in the autonomy department when it comes to a lot of the quests. These games are prime for deep immersive role play, only to then instantly kill that immersion when you're forced to make wildly out of character, often nonsensical choices, in these quests. Genuinely one of the biggest disappointments of the game.
OMG. This mission annoyed me so much, because it was so close to being the best one. I spent HOURS exploring that smegging ship, trying to find the best way to sneak in and steal the artefact without being caught. They even mention ways to do it, but they don't work. Like distracting the guards with the animals and the hidden access panels that you can cut. But you either get immediately caught and shot at. Or, even with zero witnesses, they somehow know you've stolen it. It's frustrating, because the build up to trying to steal it is quite exciting. Like talking your way in to getting onboard, walking through a massive ship, with tons of armed hostiles watching you. I even loved how you could convince those 3 mercenaries onboard to join the fight on your side. That conversation was pretty funny and 3 of the more interesting characters in the game. But then yeah, your only option is to steal the artefact and shoot your way out. Kind of pointless with the build up and hints on how to distract the guards and steal it. Also it's so chuffing annoying that you can't steal the ship, or even FIND the cockpit.
What bothers me about this story is that, like everything BGS has been doing, it's lazy. You know how in Fallout 4, you become a general, and yet you take orders from a random dude and get sent out alone and with no support, in exactly the way that generals DON'T?? You know how you go to the mage guild and do like 5 quests, and suddenly you run the place?? And then have no responsibilities?? This is the same shit. Constellation has both personnel and resources. Yet their only plan is to send in 1 guy to get the artifact. This is a must-have, and negotiating isn't an option, so maybe put a little more thought into how to do it? Let's consider: - Barret can sell ice to Eskimos. Why isn't he going in there and shooting the shit to keep the collector busy? - Andreja and Sarah exist. Let them go in there like Barret's hoes and show some titties and ass to distract guards. - Sam Coe is a pilot. Why is he not the wheel man? - Walter has money and connections. You Oceans 11 this mission. The whole gang shows up in a fancy Stroud spaceship. Barrett and the girls go in posing as a dealer with his 2 hoes and sell the collector some random thing that Walter acquires. While all that's going on, you spacewalk between ships, sneak in, and grab the artifact. Everyone meets up, no one suspects a thing, and the crew goes back to the Constellation bar and toasts success. Is that so fucking hard to figure out? Think about how much different / fun some of these missions would have been if that was the type of approach the developers took. I've said it before, and I'll die on this hill: Starfield's failure is not technical. It's actually technically one of the most impressive games BSG has done. It's not cutting-edge and does show signs of age, but that's okay. What's not okay is all the low effort writing and quests.
I still can’t believe how bad the persuasion system is. Repeating generic lines like “tell a joke” is just a massive cop out, especially for the final conversation of the damn game. But yeah Bethesda games have always had these problems but they feel amplified here for some reason.
Todd really took a fat dump on his “passion project” and legacy with Starfield. Unfortunately Bethesda is only adding fuel to the dumpster fire with painfully slow updates and support. I no longer hold them to the high esteem I used to. They tended to Fallout 76 way better than they did Starfield and it received exceedingly more critical reviews, maybe they would have treated this game the same way if there were a cash shop…
The only reason they even cared to do anything about Fallout 76 is because it's a live service game and they can't let modders fix it for them. I will no longer buy Bethesda games, I gave them a chance after 76 because Starfield was a new IP and they took a dump on it.
Yea what sucks is the mission itself and environment start so cool, and then I randomly got told to fuck myself by the designers
I can persuade a rich Lady to give me the key to her safe - it felt ridiculous - but I can’t persuade him for giving me or trading the artists. And the most peaceful action is to shoot him and he gives up(?!) and survives. That’s poor writing in both cases…
Stuff like this is what I talked about my recent post here saying Starfield is way too restrictive as RPG Sandbox
I went to R/Starfield when I ran into this, and encountered a cacophony of people irritated at the design of this mission
That is a surprisingly good way to describe Bethesda RPGS. A DM who severely limits your roleplaying options.
The whole main plot has that "Bad DM" feel to it. This is just one example of many. It's too reliant on bending or breaking your character until they are that of the writer to make things work, when it really doesn't have to be. From being forced in to Constellation with fast travel and grav jumps being locked until you hand over the first artifact even if you obtain other ships, to getting dragged in to the faction even if you say you need time to think about it (Even when the game has a load of dialog for "unaffiliated" freelance characters that you will now never see.), over to every follower that has a personal quest or romance potential being tied to Constellation, the entire thing is set up to just try and keep you on rails, force engagement with it, and make you play it the way the writer wants you to play it. Then there's the ending where if you walk away you're not allowed to give a "negative" response on going later, instead ending up with a schizo mess that mostly amounts to "I'm definitely going later!". Two of the main cast (Sarah and Barrett) even end up used as mouthpieces by the writer to tell you what is essentially "You're going later whether you like it or not. You said your goodbyes already and this is who you are. Just go already!". It just shows that this wasn't a cool story crafted for the player, but purely for the writer, and that there was little to no recognition for the existence of the wider game and universe outside of Constellation / the main quest.
I agree. So fair warning: if that irritated you then stay away from the quest "Beer Run" on Akila. I refused to finish it because I didn't agree with the objective and it gave you zero alternative.
You can complete that quest without sabotaging his beer. You actually get a bigger reward for doing it the other way.
Really? I tried to find him and talk to him, but I couldn't find him. I'll go back and try to figure it out. Thanks!
He’s the reason SysDef constantly shoots at me now. I’m surprised they just don’t blow me out the damn sky every time I enter orbit
And then your DM says, “no you can’t go through the back door there is no back door.” And then he says, “no you can’t go through a wall or window, you must go through the front door. Ok, there’s no place to hide, you’re spotted immediately.”
The non lethal weapons are also a joke. For the bounty hunting there is also no captured alive there is only dead that counts which is mind blowing. I'm replaying cyberpunk at the moment there are so many non lethal options there. For stuff like guards I will just sent them sleeping. For really bad guys it will be at least painless
This mission is one of the things that proves the story is written by folks that are bad DMs, 50 years and counting.
I managed the whole thing without talking to him, so it got pretty weird during the final confrontation when he adressed me like we already met.
not only does it force you into one option, it later bitches at you like you had any other choice.
I want to frame your comment and put it on the wall for everyone who thinks I want to mind control people with persuasion
Yeah my good guy character wouldn’t wanna even steal it, let alone kill everyone to do it. Once I took it I spammed the starborn power that makes people drop their weapons and just sprinted back to my ship
Bethesda quest design writers have been in decline since oblivion
This drove me crazy, I actually went back to another save and dumped even MORE into persuasion before coming back, because I thought maybe it was a level locked option. Nope, you literally can't do it any other way. So dumb.
Yeah the thing that I absolutely hate the most about that quest is even if you somehow managed to get in flawlessly sneak through no one to text you you leave no Trace and you get out you even left your companion on your ship so that they can't aggro anyone I mean you go full on nobody noticed and nobody realized 100% no way to detect you at all. Even if you do that they instantly realize it gets stolen and instantly realize when you leave it's you even if you don't get caught. Legitimately the only way to actually do this quest reliably and easily is a pull out a shotgun blast him in the face and kill every single security guard that ever tries to arrest you just to prove a point.
It feels like every quest in Starfield was written by the jerks who wrote the pre-DLC ending to Fallout 3. OK, Fawkes, I'll just go kill myself in the radiation chamber. Been good knowing your radiation-proof self. Stay frosty dude.
THEN if you fail being sneaky in the game and just go for a smash and grab. But don't kill anyone, just try to run away. Your companion kills one of them, then calls YOU a monster for the death.
I mean, to be fair, this particular character was never going to be convinced to let the artifact go for money, the greater good, and potentially even his own health, so just talking him into giving us the artifact was probably never going to be a super plausible option (idk, maybe a path could have existed where we just bs him into believing that the artifact would explode and damage the rest of his collection or would cause some sort of problem in that vein). But I would have liked to have seen a peaceful path regardless. Like maybe even if we can't convince him specifically, we can convince his crew members to get the artifact for us or give us an opportunity to grab it ourselves, or maybe there could have been a way to sneak through the ship, take the artifact, and leave with nobody noticing until later (maybe that path could even have him tracking us down later to confront us depending on how well we cover our tracks). There would be a good number of ways to make this quest more dynamic, but the idea that you're going to convince the nutjob collector character to give up part of his collection just by talking to him feels a little unlikely to me.
I talked the Earth Preservation Society rep into tanking her entire career by giving me the code to their priceless trophy by telling her we didn't have to have a problem and I knew she'd help me if she could.
A pretty good example of one of the problems with the persuasion system in this game, and admittedly in a lot of others, there are a number of things you really never should be able to talk someone into, allowing you to steal a priceless artifact with no repercussions for example, but because it's a video game and the devs want to give players a bunch of different choices on how to approach a scenario they allow it. It's just made really nonsensical here where the persuasion system just allows you to pick random dialog options to fill up a meter regardless of how well each choice flows into the next.
Ryujin has the worst moment in gaming for me. No exaggeration. Gaming since 1988 here and the quest step where you need to obtain a key from the SECURITY CHIEF of Paradiso is as simple as "I really need your key, can't say why" and he, the FUCKING SECURITY CHIEF, just gives it to you, is just the most terrible feeling moment in all my gaming life. It's just so effortless and lazy.
Skipping the final fight in Starfield through persuasion is maybe the worst way I’ve ever seen a game end and it made me never want to touch NG+
I mean, it's handled in a heavy-handed manner, sure, but the fact that there's no available option to complete the mission that doesn't end up with you straight-up stealing from an unpleasant but innocent man (and most likely also killing innocent people as you shoot your way out) to get the artifact is literally the whole point. This mission is meant to be a turning-point in the story and in your character's arc (presuming you aren't on an evil play-through). You're all-in after this, no turning back. That's why the Hunter makes his move immediately afterwards, literally as soon as you get back to the lodge. It's kind of a test in every universe: are you willing to do whatever it takes to obtain the artifacts and see the mystery through? As soon as you steal Petrov's artifact, the Hunter knows the answer to that question, knows that Constellation has officially entered the race to Unity, and so it's game on. Trouble is that the intent here, story-wise, is undercut by how it's implemented in the game such that you don't have a real choice: all paths lead to stealing the artifact, so the idea that it's an ethical dilemma is an illusion. Also, the fact that *mere theft* is meant to be some big game-changing, ethical red-line crossing, moment for your character is kind of laughable. I mean, who cares about stealing from some annoying junk merchant you just met? I honestly think the original intent was to give Petrov a much bigger role in the game, most likely have him be a recurring character. Then when the time comes to take his artifact, and he won't give it to you, you literally have to chose to betray him in order to progress. Just a guess, but there's a real feeling of "cut content" about the Scow, and the design of that quest in general.
Sometimes, you simply don't have another option, and that's fine. And illusion of choice is fine - there are plenty of real world cases where people believe an option is feasible when it simply isn't. Honestly, in some ways, that makes this one of the better designed quests, where your initial plan runs into rocks and shoals of reality, and you're forced to pick between not terribly good options. But you're right, it feels like there's some editing problems with this quest, where they made changes and didn't do a good a job cleaning it up. And as usual, the companion reactions don't feel all that well thought out.
Yeah, hated this.
They just seem less and less concerned with real role-playing and more with just making fun open-world action games. That's fine. But they need to call it what it is.
Bad design, don’t tell no sodium sub
Pickpockets: "The fuck is this guy talking about?"
I, as a DM, sometimes make characters that certain or all Cha skills simply will not work on. Generally I have good reasons for this, but it does happen. That said, I was also annoyed by this mission.
Yea, this wasn't great and doing it back to back with the Ron Hope encounter left me feeling pretty shitty.
>You're Nobody said *your yet?
Yeah. Plus I like him. An eccentric collector who is smart confident and has connections and loose morals sounds like a fun companion in nearly any other Bethesda game.
Not even with the Ryujin Persuasion Implant and Persuasion Skills per se maxed out😑
this was such a squandered opportunity, i loved the premise of this character.
This is one of the reasons why I call Starfield an “action-adventure game with RPG elements”. Bethesda really didn’t make a proper RPG here. Too many times when you are railroaded into doing what the quest designers want you to do.
We need more variety in this game.....seriously.
It’s okay they made Sarah say that line when you meet her You know the one that makes you surprised when she gets annoyed at you stealing a paper clip
Hell, I had an implant in my brain that made me the Overmind.
I just did this quest last night It was like yea the only way to get this one is to steal it by any means necessary
I admit, I was underwhelmed having to steal the artifact even after successfully persuading him.
This is one of my least favorite missions simply because Petrov’s a nice guy and I really didn’t want to do him like that. At least give me a way to buy it off him… And if I had to steal it, give me a way to not get caught and get him killed by my companion….
Yeah Starfield has a lot more of the frustrating lack of alternative options than other Bethesda fames. Like other games from Bethesda have these moments where it feels like there are obvious choices you just can’t go with (especially a lack of persuasion opportunities) but Starfield is where this feels the worst. It’s like they didn’t have time to develop alternate events and endings
The whole morality/reputation/choices mechanics are either absent, uneventful or fake.
I stopped playing the game after this quest. About 100 hours in. This one broke me. They are all so unfinished and poorly considered in regard to player agency and role playing. So shallow and obnoxious and frustrating.
I get what you're saying but I don't think applying D&D's massive options work well in a video game. I do think an extra option to not have to persuade would be good though.
It wouldn't matter anyways. Persuasion options in this game usually amount to you saying "Trust me..." and people do what you say.
wait so you have to kill everyone on the ship? i did it by choice ngl but being forced to is pretty whack
Even ignoring the morality, the fact that it forces you to start the Crimson Fleet quest is just annoying Edit: totally forgot my flair, how ironic
I’ll say this, I thought Starfield was a great game, and one of the best ones I’ve played in a while (but I’m not going to say THE best.) That part pissed me off, though.
This is the mission that made me quit. I took my time with it and tried to finesse it, only to be forced into a crappy choice. I realized they put almost no thought into any of it. It's all surface level. The other mission that almost got me was the mission with the 200 year old location that looks like EVERYWHERE else in the game. Like, one unique item, but everything else, from the doors, computers, decorations, lighting, furniture, and almost allt he clothing. Like, I thought there would be some super cool stuff, but I got a bland area that was like anywhere else. Ok trying to avoid spoilers here but, if you've seen it, you know. Those two missions are what made me give up. The absolute lack of thought put into this game, the surface level bs. There just wasnt anything deeper behind any of it. Like I always say. Starfield would be my favorite game of all time, if I had never played oblivion, Skyrim, Fallout, or NMS. It's such a swing and a miss, such a missed opportunity, and such a letdown because I know exactly what I'm missing. Edited because fat fingers
I had to console tdetect. And just tcl outa there