r/XboxSeriesX • u/Turbostrider27 • Dec 04 '23

Xbox wants Starfield to have the 12-year staying power of Skyrim Discussion

https://www.pcgamesn.com/starfield/popular-like-skyrim
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473

u/Volt7ron Dec 04 '23 edited Dec 04 '23

I couldn’t stay interested for 12 hours. I wanted to like this game. I gave it an honest chance. Just didn’t like it.

Edit: spelling

152

u/Fdana Dec 04 '23

Apparently it gets good after 12 hours. Yes, that’s what people are seriously saying.

120

u/anillop Dec 04 '23

I know right, he was only a half hour away from when the game really picks up.

73

u/allswelltillnow Dec 04 '23

I was blown away when my game timer read 12:31:00, man what a fucking trip that was

2

u/tom_oakley Dec 05 '23

"Just one more quest line, Arthur!"

73

u/siraiy Dec 04 '23

Honestly if your game has to be played for TWELVE hours before it "gets good" I aint playing, thats such a shit defence. Skyrim was engaging in the first 5 minutes!

23

u/caverunner17 Dec 04 '23

My limit is 2-3 hours. IE 2 “gaming sessions” for me.

If the game isn’t interesting or engaging by that time, it’s probably not for me.

There’s too many good games out there that don’t take half of a normal length campaign to get good

2

u/IMissMyZune Dec 04 '23

12 hours is a stretch imo but there's a lot of classic content in games, books, tv shows etc that don't "get good" until a while later. I felt this way about Red Dead Redemption 2 which IMO was one of the most boring games I ever played until about halfway when it became amazing.

1

u/Anteater_Able Dec 04 '23

Does that mean Persona 5 is a bad game?

6

u/shinikahn Dec 04 '23

I was thinking about P5, too. Look it is one of my favorite games of all time but it's true the intro is super slow and it's hard to recommend to any person who isn't an RPG fan.

2

u/kaysn Dec 04 '23

People have accepted JRPGs to be slow burns. You think P5 is slow. Try Legends of Heroes: Trails in the Sky, it is a 40 hour prologue to Trails in the Sky SC. (Incidentally my favorite JRPG series. Second to Suikoden. I like to think the spiritual successor to it. With its amazing world building and political intrigue plots.)

2

u/Fremdling_uberall Dec 04 '23

Tbh the first half of p5 is stronger than the second (not including royal). Or maybe I'm just tired of the whole fighting gods with the power of friendship type deal.

1

u/siraiy Dec 04 '23

Persona 5 hooked me in immediately with the style and flair, so personally I don't think it's a fair comparison. If Starfields opening/my 50 hour playthrough was half as stylish as Persona 5 is Id absolutely be playing it more 🤷

0

u/Nephisimian Dec 04 '23

Same for TV shows. No, it doesn't get good in season 2. I already gave the writers an hour and they couldn't think of anything to hook me, it's clearly not for me.

1

u/zerovampire311 Dec 05 '23

That’s basically most MMOs though, a sad reality of game design failure.

1

u/AscendedViking7 Dec 05 '23

It depends on the genre.

I haven't ever seen a CRPG that doesn't take a dozen hours to get good.

26

u/evanmckee Founder Dec 04 '23 edited Dec 04 '23

I’m not saying it should take 12 hours for a game to get good, but the first 12 hours for me were easily the worst 12. That and power hunting, I should have stopped after one. It was the single worst part of the game. I found a lot of the big side quests to be a lot of fun and felt like their own game in a good way for me. The main quest was the best I’ve played in a Bethesda game. In 2023, Fallout 4 and Skyrim are better experiences than Starfield in my opinion. I feel like Bethesda took what I love about the Bethesda RPGs put it in a meat grinder with added fillers to produce a product that taste reminiscent of their previous games, but the quality has been diluted to make more of it.

16

u/Natty_Dread_Lite Dec 04 '23

Well are people saying it gets even better after 100? I logged off one day and just haven’t felt any reason to jump back in.

12

u/altcastle Dec 04 '23

I’m glad we can express how ridiculous that was now without tons of downvotes. For the first few weeks, people kept just saying that like if you didn’t keep going you were cheating and couldn’t have an opinion.

I want to like Starfield, but I just didn’t. Life is too short for me to spend 12, 20, 35 hours actively not liking it to maybe like it? I have tons of games I like pretty much the whole way!

1

u/RadPlaidLad Dec 04 '23

Yeah, feel I’m too old for timesink games. It’s very rare for me to want to spend 30+ hours on a game unless it’s truly special.

26

u/RadPlaidLad Dec 04 '23

I’ve even heard people say it gets good after 30 hours…

12

u/theycmeroll Dec 04 '23

Yeah the biggest one I see is the game really kicks off when you finish the story.

1

u/Sippinonjoy Dec 04 '23

Shouldn’t the story itself be the “good” part?

11

u/NotFromMilkyWay Founder Dec 04 '23

Have 35 hours. Stopped there because space combat was horrible .

10

u/SuperWonderBoy53 Dec 04 '23

I mean, so far every quest has been go to quest giver, go to ship, fast travel to location, have a boring shoot out, collect item, fast travel to ship, fast travel to quest giver, turn in for obtuse reward.

1

u/dk00111 Dec 04 '23

You can fast travel to other planets when you’re not at your ship. Cuts out a lot of the monotonous travel.

13

u/[deleted] Dec 04 '23

I was 30+ hours in and still not feeling it.

0

u/Nephisimian Dec 04 '23

What I wouldn't give to have the attention span to be able to spend 30 hours playing a game I wasn't enjoying.

5

u/[deleted] Dec 04 '23

I really wanted to give it a shot. I had a friend who put in over 100 hours and he told me it didn't get better.

2

u/Useful_You_8045 Dec 07 '23

As someone who also played 100+ it doesn't.

2

u/[deleted] Dec 07 '23

Such a shame

2

u/Useful_You_8045 Dec 08 '23 edited Dec 08 '23

100 hrs into Skyrim and I'm pretty sure I 100% everything getting every achievement

100hrs into vanilla f4 with all the dlc I'm almost max lvl have complete control of the nuka park, halfway through far harbor and have a network of automatons linking every single settlement

100hrs into starfield... Did the ranger mission and the mantis got Sam killed (finally) then the rest is a blur of trying to sell my s#it trying to make a custom ship or trying to get into legit outpost building for defenders of this game to tell me "why do that? just buy resources."

In their past games I could've done that in 20 hrs tops if I actually went out exploring which I didn't do after my first planet in starfield and the whole time I was just reminded on taxes, how empty and uninteresting space is, and no one gives a s#it about you till you kiss their a$$ till it's shiny.

Yay👍😮‍💨

2

u/[deleted] Dec 08 '23

Seriously. I've put an ungodly amount of time into Oblivion, hundreds of hours into Fallout 3, New Vegas, Skyrim, etc.

Despite Fallout 4s flaws its a fun game with a world worth exploring.

Hell, it's not a Bethesda game, but I've beaten The Outer Worlds 3 separate times.

Starfield, 30 hours in and I was like, what am I doing wrong? So I started a second playthrough, different build and quickly realized how empty the NPC engagement was, no schedules and basically every named character is unkillable. So the idea of affecting the world in a meaningful way ala fallout went right out the window.

The Outer Worlds is closer to what I was expecting from a Bethesda sci-fi game.

If I wanted an empty game about resource management and walking across empty worlds, Death Stranding did it better lol.

1

u/Useful_You_8045 Dec 07 '23

I mean it's the same thing no matter what you do

Played for 10 hrs don't like it "haven't played enough to criticize it"

Played for 30 hrs don't like it "well then you're just a hater why even play it at all?"

It's either one or the other

24

u/donkdonkdo Dec 04 '23

I played through the game because I was told ‘the more you put into it the more it gives you!’

It’s the same game through and through. I don’t know where that idea came from. I can only imagine it was some fanboy PR mantra to keep people interested.

You’re repeating the same procedural shit from beginning to end with a hand full of quest lines I would consider somewhat interesting. The game fundamentally doesn’t change whether you’re 5 hours in or 50.

6

u/hornwalker Dec 04 '23

That's a lie they tell themselves to justify spending so much time do the same thing over and over in a game that is suppose to be about exploration and discovering new things.

2

u/flirtmcdudes Dec 04 '23

Im sorry but NOTHING should require 10+ hours of investment before it gets fun.

You dont watch 4 seasons of a terrible and boring TV show because the 5th season gets good. Starfield is just boring, but people likely have a sunkcost fallacy where they want to like it so much they convince themselves they are having fun at a certain point.

1

u/GreatQuantum Dec 05 '23

Uhh Prison Break

1

u/tnnrk Dec 04 '23

Which makes no sense. It depends on how fast you play it. Idk what point in the game people are talking about but I’m pretty sure it’s copium. Nothing changed after 12 hours for me.

0

u/MuffDiving Dec 04 '23

I was just invested after 12 hours, I think it actually gets more lame hunting artifacts and bouncing around temples.

0

u/Jumponamonkey Dec 04 '23

I've also heard people say it gets bad around 50 hours, apparently that's about the point all the constant in game menus, fast travel and loading screens start to get a bit tedious.

But I'm sure the intermediate 38 hours are great fun.

1

u/landel1234 Dec 04 '23

I played it front to back with 60~ hours total and at no point did I ever think, "damn this game is a classic/really good"

It's 7/10 from IGN was well deserved

1

u/Blunderhorse Dec 04 '23

It doesn’t really get good, it’s just that you’ve paid your skill point taxes to actually interact with some of the game’s systems. Bethesda needs to completely scrap the existing skill points and character progression system and replace it with a system that doesn’t lock you out of so many game mechanics. Crafting and research needs a similar overhaul, but at least that isn’t a mandatory part of the game.

1

u/JadedDarkness Dec 04 '23

I would say it does get better around then, but if you were hating it you’re not gonna suddenly fall in love.

1

u/Useful_You_8045 Dec 07 '23

Why does it get better after 12 hrs. I've played for 100 and haven't noticed it improving once. "Why even play it for 100 hrs" I couldn't tell you, I don't remember how it got to 100hrs, I'm upset that somehow my total play was at 100 and I couldn't tell where 85 hrs went.

1

u/JadedDarkness Dec 07 '23

Well I just think that around that time is when you get access to all the game’s mechanics (assuming you are playing the main story) and you have more familiarity with everything so you don’t feel as lost. The game’s quality doesn’t improve, but the player experience does. Hopefully that makes sense.

1

u/Existing365Chocolate Dec 04 '23

A game that gets good after 12 hours isn’t a good game

1

u/Dchaney2017 Dec 04 '23

It's been the opposite in my experience, as has been the case with all of Bethesda's games. It starts out semi promising but gets worse as time goes on and you realize that you've already experienced everything the game has to offer, despite there still being hundreds of hours of gameplay left.

1

u/noother10 Dec 04 '23

It was always "It gets better after X hours! Push through!", where X is your commented play time + 5-10 hours. It was just copium from people who thought it was good, but all they had was a high tolerance for crap game design, they're now at the same point as everyone else it just took them 100+ hours.

1

u/darkseidis_ Dec 05 '23

I don’t think that’s insane for the style of game it is tbh. A narrative driven RPG is going to grab people quicker than a sandbox just by their nature.

It did take a while to grab me, but after getting in to the faction quests, stumbling on a bunch of cool side quests, and getting credits and level up enough to really get in to ship building, I was hooked.

1

u/Level_Somewhere_6229 Dec 05 '23

It does though but that only lasts for about 10 hours then goes back to being a boring shit fest.

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u/BX293A Dec 04 '23

Same, I tried so hard with it. Eventually I looked online and found the quests people were going “omg these are the best ones” and tried two — when those were still fairly mediocre I switched off.

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u/ProperFixLater Dec 04 '23 edited Mar 14 '24

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This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

3

u/Mando177 Dec 04 '23

Yeah people kept praising the ranger and ryujin questlines and they just ended up being so painfully boring

12

u/haha_suh_dude Dec 04 '23

I played about 10 but just wasn’t feeling it. So sterile and dry. Said I’d come back but then Alan Wake 2 released and it’s been a few weeks now. Feel like I’d need to start over and that’s not exactly appealing

1

u/altcastle Dec 04 '23

Meanwhile, Alan Wake 2 was an incredible ride. Show me the champion of light!

7

u/boogs_23 Dec 04 '23

I only made it 4. I really like Skyrim and wanted to like Starfield. I know I didn't give it much of a chance, but I also know I would have spent the majority of the game annoyed. Do you ever play a game and start making a list in your head of everything you hate about it? I found myself doing that really early on and did not want another 50 hours of that.

1

u/Nephisimian Dec 04 '23

Yes but I also do that for games I love. I make an effort to also make a list of the things I'm enjoying too, so that I don't talk myself out of enjoying it.

0

u/boogs_23 Dec 04 '23

That is such a great way to approach things. I plan on giving Starfield another go at some point down the line. I'll try to reframe my thought process.

4

u/CookieAndPizza Dec 04 '23

I made it till 6. Went to a 'point of interest'. There was a mining machine, 2 people walking. No loot, no baddies, no side quest, no nothing. That's when I said fuck it this is not the Skyrim in space which could've been so cool

2

u/S0urakotsos Dec 04 '23

Within the first 2 hours, I got bored of the game. It reminded me of a worse fallout 4. Those freaking loading screens threw the immersion out of the window. But apparently, after 12-20 hours 'the game gets good'. So I played around 30 hours and I realised that I am not having fun. Why would I grind for ship building? To watch the ship on the loading screen? Hell no. The dialogues were terrible. I did not care about the story after those 2 hours. Just skipped every single dialogue to progress faster cause it was boring. Why not let me play the way I want? Why did I have to please and say sorry to every companion because they like nothing I do? There was supposed to have space exploration, but there is nothing to explore. Same shit different planet. Can't fly my ship because apparently that would be boring. Thankfully, I have the gamepass, so I did not pay for that crap. Deleted it and will never return on that. On the bright side, Cyberpunk made a comeback. Loved all 64 hours I spent on my netrunner playthrough and now restarted to play another build.

Also I come from Elite Dangerous. That game, even though it is an ocean wide, 1 inch depth game, it has way better exploration. Better sound. Better dogfights. There is a reason to build the ship you want for the purpose you want. Immersion is way better there even if I am stuck in the pilot sit (because I play on series x).

2

u/Gaiden_95 Dec 04 '23

same. will play oblivion to death (in fact, am playing it right now) but starfield just didn't do it for me. first bgs title that i've legitimately not finished.

3

u/[deleted] Dec 04 '23

I was told by a friend “the story is really, really good. It changes everything.” I asked if it ties into their other universes and he said “you’ll need to play and see, but you won’t be disappointed.”

Yeah, still haven’t cared enough to beat it. I think I’m 2/3 of the way there, but guessing.

0

u/[deleted] Dec 04 '23

Same. I really tried but after 5 or 6 hours all I was thinking was everything just didn't feel as good a Skyrim did.... so I went and re downloaded Skyrim and played that for a couple weeks.

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u/[deleted] Dec 04 '23

[deleted]

3

u/caverunner17 Dec 04 '23

Someone can like the concept of the game but hate the execution.

There have been a few games as of recent that have really turned themselves around after some major updating.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 04 '23

[deleted]

0

u/caverunner17 Dec 04 '23

I couldn’t get past 5 before I was bored. Loved the concept of a space Skyrim. Hated the execution. Maybe it can be fixed. Maybe it can’t be.

0

u/[deleted] Dec 04 '23

[deleted]

1

u/caverunner17 Dec 04 '23

You were never the target audience with the attention span of a goldfish like that.

If a game isn't interesting within the first few hours, it's not worth playing to me. There are too many good games that don't suffer from a bore-fest that you have to slog through. I only have a few hours per week to play and I'm not wasting it on something that isn't fun to me. In comparison, one of my black Friday purchases was Hogwarts Legacy. 1 hour in and I was hooked. Nothing about Starfield made me want to continue playing.

The bar for quality open world games has risen significantly the last 6-7 years. Bethesda hasn't kept up in storytelling, animation, graphics, or even gameplay.

I had high expectations and literally built a new PC to play it. Yet in the end, it just disappointed.

In the end, it's great that you enjoyed it, but there's plenty of people like myself where the game fell flat on.

1

u/Direct-Cartoonist-75 Dec 05 '23

I agree. I played it for only a couple hours and couldn’t stay hooked. First off why can’t I play the game at 1080p 60fps? I can see it being locked to 30fps at 4K, but in every resolution? Come on it’s 2023 nobody wants to play at 30fps when pretty much every new game has at least 60 or even 120. Second, I could not get interested into the game as it felt exactly like Skyrim except the slapped space onto it. Will honestly probably never touch the game again.