This really is a Loading Screen Simulator

[Tiearian]

I have this game on an NVMe and loading screens are almost instant, Yet you are constantly on them to do the most basic things, that it becomes incredibly immersion breaking. A simple mission where you need to go find someone, literally went like this:
-Mission started, went to go outside *Loading Screen*
-Ran through borderline empty city to get on my ship *Loading Screen*
-went to the pilot seat *Loading Screen*
- Pressed "E" to lock on *Loading Screen*
-Was now at planet I needed to be at, Pressed "E" then "R" *Loading Screen*
-Now on planet, walked about 15 steps to an entrance *Loading Screen*
-walked down a hallway to talk to someone for about 30 seconds, Now i needed to leave the building *Loading Screen*
-walked back to my ship cuz now I needed to go to another planet *Loading Screen*
-Walked up to the pilot seat *Loading Screen*
-Hit "E" again to lock on and Jump *Loading Screen*
-Hit "E" again to set a course to land, left clicked, Held "R" *Loading Screen*
-Landed on planet Exited ship *Loading Screen*
-etc.
-- I think you get the point.

This all happened in a matter of 5-10 minutes, I talked to total of 3 people, got maybe a minutes worth of uninspiring text, and dullness. And went through roughly 25 loading screens for single mission, where I just needed to go talk to someone. And this is before you even know whats going on, or have an inkling of something exciting to encourage you to even want to talk about the subject matter that the mission is for.

I don't get how they thought this would be an enjoyable way to experience a game based on Exploration...

EDIT: This sort of loading is fine in games like Skyrim, and Fallout, because in a literal sense your loading whats behind closed doors/caves. However, when it's done in a game that constantly talks about being an explorer(of space/universe,) and that being the epicenter of the Main Story, I simply can't get immersed when there isn't any form of an Open World setting that you are actually exploring. Skyrim and Fallout had a world, and then you loaded into it's various buildings and caves. Starfield has no Setting/"World", it's just all buildings and caves.(for lack of a better way of putting) One could say Space is it's setting, but we see barely any of it for the actual part of "exploring" space and finding new worlds, and most the time as others have pointed out, it can be entirely skipped all together. In which case it's filler. Sorta funny to think they made Empty Space, skip-able filler content, that is at the same time in direct association with the premise of the Main Story.

[Malak]

Morrowind had less loading screens 20 years ago...

[winfieldrocks]

No cap. Straight loading sim.

[Incandescence]

definitely unfortunate how broken up the world worlds are,

[Tanyon]

You are doing WAY too much.. you never need to go back to your ship.. the second you get your next destination just open the map and head there.. I could cut out literally half the steps you are taking. Maybe you should learn how to actually navigate the menus better.

Let me help you:

-Mission started, went to go outside *Loading Screen*
-Ran through borderline empty city to get on my ship *Loading Screen*
-went to the pilot seat *Loading Screen*
- Pressed "E" to lock on *Loading Screen*

******"Mission started" open map, select system and warp directly to it.

-Was now at planet I needed to be at, Pressed "E" then "R" *Loading Screen*
-Now on planet, walked about 15 steps to an entrance *Loading Screen*
-walked down a hallway to talk to someone for about 30 seconds,

*this checks out and is how it is.

*******Now i needed to leave the building *Loading Screen********

(No no no stoppppp once again just open the map and you can select the planet right from the screen AND if it is a planet that you have already landed on the surface before you can go to "land" and just be on the planet.

- I think you get the point.

I literally eliminated like 75% of your screens.. do better.

[Subzero]

Originally posted by DarthTanyon:

You are doing WAY too much.. you never need to go back to your ship.. the second you get your next destination just open the map and head there.. I could cut out literally half the steps you are taking. Maybe you should learn how to actually navigate the menus better.

Let me help you:

-Mission started, went to go outside *Loading Screen*
-Ran through borderline empty city to get on my ship *Loading Screen*
-went to the pilot seat *Loading Screen*
- Pressed "E" to lock on *Loading Screen*

*"Mission started" open map, select system and warp directly to it.

-Was now at planet I needed to be at, Pressed "E" then "R" *Loading Screen*
-Now on planet, walked about 15 steps to an entrance *Loading Screen*
-walked down a hallway to talk to someone for about 30 seconds,

*this checks out and is how it is.

*******Now i needed to leave the building *Loading Screen********

(No no no stoppppp once again just open the map and you can select the planet right from the screen AND if it is a planet that you have already landed on the surface before you can go to "land" and just be on the planet.

- I think you get the point.

I literally eliminated like 75% of your screens.. do better.

"No no no you don't understand, just teleport to the other planet. You don't have to interface with 70% of the things you'd expect to use in space to get around."

This is why this game feels so boring. The one thing that had to be fun was the space travel and even that is made to be boring. Either you watch some cutscenes and desperately try to pretend what you're 'traversing' has any real scale, or you teleport around like some omnipotent god in human form unbound by the laws of matter to your next local fishbowl full of 'Artificial' NPC's.

[Tanyon]

Originally posted by Subzero:

Originally posted by DarthTanyon:

You are doing WAY too much.. you never need to go back to your ship.. the second you get your next destination just open the map and head there.. I could cut out literally half the steps you are taking. Maybe you should learn how to actually navigate the menus better.

Let me help you:

-Mission started, went to go outside *Loading Screen*
-Ran through borderline empty city to get on my ship *Loading Screen*
-went to the pilot seat *Loading Screen*
- Pressed "E" to lock on *Loading Screen*

*"Mission started" open map, select system and warp directly to it.

-Was now at planet I needed to be at, Pressed "E" then "R" *Loading Screen*
-Now on planet, walked about 15 steps to an entrance *Loading Screen*
-walked down a hallway to talk to someone for about 30 seconds,

*this checks out and is how it is.

*******Now i needed to leave the building *Loading Screen********

(No no no stoppppp once again just open the map and you can select the planet right from the screen AND if it is a planet that you have already landed on the surface before you can go to "land" and just be on the planet.

- I think you get the point.

I literally eliminated like 75% of your screens.. do better.

"No no no you don't understand, just teleport to the other planet. You don't have to interface with 70% of the things you'd expect to use in space to get around."

This is why this game feels so boring. The one thing that had to be fun was the space travel and even that is made to be boring. Either you watch some cutscenes and desperately try to pretend what you're 'traversing' has any real scale, or you teleport around like some omnipotent god in human form unbound my the laws of matter to your next local fishbowl full of 'Artificial' NPC's.

I have 1k hours in SC, ED and NMS and I mean it's whatever I did not buy this game because I thought it was going to be a space sim or hoped it would be like those. Skyrim and Fallout both have fast travel with loading screens and everyone wants to act like they just don't exists lol.

[Ravnhood]

This is just you not using the system correctly. You can completely bypass 80% of those steps and just go straight to space at the new location. Just use your map instead of taking every step manually if the multitude of steps bother you. Regardless of preference, the loading screens are shorter than the actually tasks, like opening doors or climbing ladders or ascending/descending through the atmosphere.

[Sraalok]

They need to implement a load screen to the end of the game and just hand you a participation trophy.

[Subzero]

Originally posted by DarthTanyon:

Originally posted by Subzero:

"No no no you don't understand, just teleport to the other planet. You don't have to interface with 70% of the things you'd expect to use in space to get around."

This is why this game feels so boring. The one thing that had to be fun was the space travel and even that is made to be boring. Either you watch some cutscenes and desperately try to pretend what you're 'traversing' has any real scale, or you teleport around like some omnipotent god in human form unbound my the laws of matter to your next local fishbowl full of 'Artificial' NPC's.

I have 1k hours in SC, ED and NMS and I mean it's whatever I did not buy this game because I thought it was going to be a space sim or hoped it would be like those. Skyrim and Fallout both have fast travel with loading screens and everyone wants to act like they just don't exists lol.

Those games are also not comparable to Starfield because they both are composed of a large open world connecting those points of interest that can be traversed ON FOOT.

Starfield, even in your ship, cannot. Not even on a single planet, or within a solar system. Absolutely, completely, unjustifiably lazy.

No Mans Sky managed it with a tiny team and the weight of every gamer's eyeballs on their back and even then had a functioning surface to space flight system on launch.

Bethesda is a massive company with ridiculous resources at their disposal, and yet this was a total wash.

[VYM]

Originally posted by Subzero:

Originally posted by DarthTanyon:

I have 1k hours in SC, ED and NMS and I mean it's whatever I did not buy this game because I thought it was going to be a space sim or hoped it would be like those. Skyrim and Fallout both have fast travel with loading screens and everyone wants to act like they just don't exists lol.

Those games are also not comparable to Starfield because they both are composed of a large open world connecting those points on interest that can be traversed ON FOOT.

Starfield, even in your ship, cannot. Not even on a single planet, or within a solar system. Absolutely, completely, unjustifiably lazy.

No Mans Sky managed it with a tiny team and the weight of every gamer's eyeballs on their back and even then had a functioning surface to space flight system on launch.

Bethesda is a massive company with ridiculous resources at their disposal, and yet this was a total wash.

Sadly 99% of people have no idea WTF are even talking about comparing games. You don't even understand the meaning of "procedurally generated universe" and "manually crafted randomly generated areas".
NMS size in 12Gb. Does it even mean anything to you? I guess no, because it's not even universe or world. Everything is procedurally generating right in front of your nose while you're moving. On release there was a dozen of handmade tiny buildings buildings that were procedurally generated during your planetary flights or after you scanned planet for specific location (ship, outpost, factory etc.). That's why NMS world is seamless.

In SF after your landing, zones are RANDOMLY generating around your ship with 3 to 30+ massive handmade POIs filled with hundreds of interior and lootable items and tons of enemies.
And yes, this is not an excuse to old outdated engine, because even 2005 World of Warcraft is the biggest seamless world out there until now. BGS could make invisible quick loading zones/areas, because loading every tiny shop in city is extremely frustrating and annoying.

[Tom-ahawk]

I feel like there was a way to do the instancing required in a better way. It doesn't get to me. I feel like I spend 99% of the time in fights, walking around, interacting with NPCs, etc. But I guess you do really notice it on a mission where, say, you are just a glorified messenger from once place to the next.

[PhamTrinli]

Originally posted by Tiearian:

I have this game on an NVMe and loading screens are almost instant, Yet you are constantly on them to do the most basic things, that it becomes incredibly immersion breaking. A simple mission where you need to go find someone, literally went like this:
-Mission started, went to go outside *Loading Screen*
-Ran through borderline empty city to get on my ship *Loading Screen*
-went to the pilot seat *Loading Screen*
- Pressed "E" to lock on *Loading Screen*
-Was now at planet I needed to be at, Pressed "E" then "R" *Loading Screen*
-Now on planet, walked about 15 steps to an entrance *Loading Screen*
-walked down a hallway to talk to someone for about 30 seconds, Now i needed to leave the building *Loading Screen*
-walked back to my ship cuz now I needed to go to another planet *Loading Screen*
-Walked up to the pilot seat *Loading Screen*
-Hit "E" again to lock on and Jump *Loading Screen*
-Hit "E" again to set a course to land, left clicked, Held "R" *Loading Screen*
-Landed on planet Exited ship *Loading Screen*
-etc.
-- I think you get the point.

This all happened in a matter of 5-10 minutes, I talked to total of 3 people, got maybe a minutes worth of uninspiring text, and dullness. And went through roughly 25 loading screens for single mission, where I just needed to go talk to someone. And this is before you even know whats going on, or have an inkling of something exciting to encourage you to even want to talk about the subject matter that the mission is for.

I don't get how they thought this would be an enjoyable way to experience a game based on Exploration...

It's because they designed the game for the lowest common denominator consoles. Consoles can only load about 2 rice grains worth of content at a time before they run out of gas, so to speak. So.. loading screen. Load more content separately. Loading screen. Load more content separately. Rinse repeat.. ad nauseum

[DCBenton]

I did a "cargo mission" last night. It consisted of accepting the mission from the job board, opening the starmap and finding the destination planet, then I held X on my game pad to land there, mission done lol, It took seconds. I don't see the point in playing a game set in space when you can just skip 99% of it tbh, at that point they might well have just removed the spaceflight completely and made the game planet bound.

[Topper]

Yeah, it strangely reminded me of half life where the game had to load the next part of the map after walking through a door, and if you went back to the same door, loading hapend the other way around.
That was 1999 and more or less a result of not having enough ram.
To see this once again in a 2023 game is quiet annoying.
Even worse: In half life something happened between loading screens, in starfield you just walk over a map.

[InstableMonster]

Yup its my biggest gripe so far

Trying to have fun and advance a quest? If it has you going to another planet you'll experience 6 loading screen for 4 line of dialog and 5min of combat