Starfield - the illusion of scale and the lack of an RPG...

[Fast]

The game has a combined populated area that is smaller than skyrim, and the entiregame is 4 railroaded plotlines that dont let you Roleplay anything, you basically just looter shooter small zones and follow linear storylines.

Beyond this the game is filled with loading screens, seeded procedural zones for planet landing, cutscenes for landing, take off , sitting in your seat, and jumping... and then a stat stick zonal space combat that is "put bigger shield == win".

procedural seeds generate POIs which are not interesting, ironic i know.

visually it looks around 7 years old already, mechanically its just a looter shooter with middling loot and decent shooting.

Oh and dont forget there is only like 5 variants of outposts and labs etc so once you have seen the few on offer youve seen all the copy pasta...

And them 5 poly trees in atlantis exist...just sayin...

Yes i have all the achievements and yes you can get from level 20 ish to 100 in about an hour 30 mins or so depending on your outpost setup time.

https://youtu.be/4UYpski6tyA

[L3wt]

Maybe instead of faster profile pic you should get faster PC.

[Fast]

Originally posted by L3wt:

Maybe instead of faster profile pic you should get faster PC. :winter2019happybulb:

but im playing on ultra? wut?

[Mike]

Originally posted by Fast:

Originally posted by Mike:

My post answers "how?" Seems you ignore it ;)

but i unlock all the things, you just loot shoot everything... its action game..

Yeah because YOU CHOOSE to do that lol. The game did not force you down your ubi-soft collect a-thon path, YOU did.

I have close to the amount of time that you have, and I'm ROLE-PLAYING a certain way because the game encourages it. My Soldier character is a morally good character, so would he have any reason to complete shady jobs/missions? Or since He is high ranking in the vanguard, why is he spending time solving every characters problems? He only takes on important missions that go with his morals.

Just because you chose to be a jack of all trades character with no depth and accept and do everything you was given does not mean the game lacks RPGs elements. It literally means you choose to play the way you did, thus it was the experience that you got.

Skyrim was the same way. You could Role play a character/class or you could do everything in one play-through like an action game and never touch the game again. People do not get hundreds/thousands of hours out of these games because they treat them like collect a-thons, they treat them like RPGs and they get MUCH more out of the experience.

[Fast]

Originally posted by Mike:

Originally posted by Fast:

but i unlock all the things, you just loot shoot everything... its action game..

Yeah because YOU CHOOSE to do that lol. The game did not force you down your ubi-soft collect a-thon path, YOU did.

I have close to the amount of time that you have, and I'm ROLE-PLAYING a certain way because the game encourages it. My Soldier character is a morally good character, so would he have any reason to complete shady jobs/missions? Or since He is high ranking in the vanguard, why is he spending time solving every characters problems? He only takes on important missions that go with his morals.

Just because you chose to be a jack of all trades character with no depth and accept and do everything you was given does not mean the game lacks RPGs elements. It literally means you choose to play the way you did, thus it was the experience that you got.

Skyrim was the same way. You could Role play a character/class or you could do everything in one play-through like an action game and never touch the game again. People do not get hundreds/thousands of hours out of these games because they treat them like collect a-thons, they treat them like RPGs and they get MUCH more out of the experience.

you roleplaying in a game does not make it a roleplaying game.

I can roleplay in mario but it doesnt make mario a roleplaying game... mario is a 2d sidescrolling platformer...(OG) its not an RPG. Same as starfield is not an RPG its an action/adventure title with looter shooter mechanics and a railroaded 3 hour main story...

[newtyng5]

Originally posted by Fast:

Originally posted by Mike:

you just loot shoot everything... its action game..

I created my character , she is a sculptor .,.. folks on planets keep saying 'Sculptor huh, hmm not for me'
But i persuaded the bank heist guys to lay down arms, persuaded the dude to give up his wedding ring ... this is what an rpg does. It's not all about shooting/looting ... that's just a choice. Whatever floats yer boat i guess. The game is far from perfect, but the RPG elements are there

[Mike]

Originally posted by Fast:

Originally posted by Mike:

Yeah because YOU CHOOSE to do that lol. The game did not force you down your ubi-soft collect a-thon path, YOU did.

I have close to the amount of time that you have, and I'm ROLE-PLAYING a certain way because the game encourages it. My Soldier character is a morally good character, so would he have any reason to complete shady jobs/missions? Or since He is high ranking in the vanguard, why is he spending time solving every characters problems? He only takes on important missions that go with his morals.

Just because you chose to be a jack of all trades character with no depth and accept and do everything you was given does not mean the game lacks RPGs elements. It literally means you choose to play the way you did, thus it was the experience that you got.

Skyrim was the same way. You could Role play a character/class or you could do everything in one play-through like an action game and never touch the game again. People do not get hundreds/thousands of hours out of these games because they treat them like collect a-thons, they treat them like RPGs and they get MUCH more out of the experience.

you roleplaying in a game does not make it a roleplaying game.

I can roleplay in mario but it doesnt make mario a roleplaying game... mario is a 2d sidescrolling platformer...(OG) its not an RPG. Same as starfield is not an RPG its an action/adventure title with looter shooter mechanics and a railroaded 3 hour main story...

Wow you example it so dumb lol. Can you create a character with traits in Mario? Can you choose multiple playstyles in Mario? Can you alter the coruse of jobs/missions with dialog choices in Mario? I could go on and on.

Your expample PROVES you are so use to the illusions of choice that when you actually get a game that give you choice you bee-line it to 100% and say its not an RPG lol.

You clearly do not know what Role-playing in games actually means do you? It boils down to player CHOICE. The ONLY choice you have in mario is to jump or not lol. So just for the fact that I can list off 10+ ways to play the game and they are all different proves the game excels in RPG elements.

Its also further proof that you were able to play the game how you wanted, that Starfield offers true RPG freedom to the player.

[Fast]

Originally posted by Mike:

Originally posted by Fast:

you roleplaying in a game does not make it a roleplaying game.

I can roleplay in mario but it doesnt make mario a roleplaying game... mario is a 2d sidescrolling platformer...(OG) its not an RPG. Same as starfield is not an RPG its an action/adventure title with looter shooter mechanics and a railroaded 3 hour main story...

Wow you example it so dumb lol. Can you create a character with traits in Mario? Can you choose multiple playstyles in Mario? Can you alter the coruse of jobs/missions with dialog choices in Mario? I could go on and on.

Your expample PROVES you are so use to the illusions of choice that when you actually get a game that give you choice you bee-line it to 100% and say its not an RPG lol.

You clearly do not know what Role-playing in games actually means do you? It boils down to player CHOICE. The ONLY choice you have in mario is to jump or not lol. So just for the fact that I can list off 10+ ways to play the game and they are all different proves the game excels in RPG elements.

Its also further proof that you were able to play the game how you wanted, that Starfield offers true RPG freedom to the player.

no you cannot, you are forced to join constellation, the only changes you can make to any of the faction quests is a choice at the end of which none of it matters lore wise, because nothing changes, if you choose to bench the neuro amp or not, it doesnt matter you still have it.

If you choose the crimson fleet or the Sysdef it doesnt matter because one side will be aggressive to you and the other not. You get a bit more stuff by having the crimson fleet side but thats not relevant to rpg.

If you choose the aceles or the microbe it makes no difference the outcome is the same.

The rangers - literally makes no difference what you do...the outcome is always the same.

and so on...

The choices are black and white, the entire plot is raildroaded anyway no matter what you say or pick , there is 0 player agency.

The only perk that gives even a mild vibe of RPG is persuasion and thats simply to allow you to avoid combat if you didnt wanna do combat more than it is a reflection of choice. This mostly allows you to skip some more annoying quest moments more than anything.

Beyond that, your background is mostly irrelevant. persuasion is usually more valuable for attaining more items and/or exp and thats about as far as it goes.

The choices you make are an illusion based on a preset outcome that you have essentially no impact on.

This is even more the case for misc missions and activities.

so you are wrong. like categorically, you telling yourself you are roleplaying x and doing that in the game does not make the games offering any more of an RPG than it already isnt.

[Mike]

Originally posted by Fast:

Originally posted by Mike:

Wow you example it so dumb lol. Can you create a character with traits in Mario? Can you choose multiple playstyles in Mario? Can you alter the coruse of jobs/missions with dialog choices in Mario? I could go on and on.

Your expample PROVES you are so use to the illusions of choice that when you actually get a game that give you choice you bee-line it to 100% and say its not an RPG lol.

You clearly do not know what Role-playing in games actually means do you? It boils down to player CHOICE. The ONLY choice you have in mario is to jump or not lol. So just for the fact that I can list off 10+ ways to play the game and they are all different proves the game excels in RPG elements.

Its also further proof that you were able to play the game how you wanted, that Starfield offers true RPG freedom to the player.

no you cannot, you are forced to join constellation, the only changes you can make to any of the faction quests is a choice at the end of which none of it matters lore wise, because nothing changes, if you choose to bench the neuro amp or not, it doesnt matter you still have it.

If you choose the crimson fleet or the Sysdef it doesnt matter because one side will be aggressive to you and the other not. You get a bit more stuff by having the crimson fleet side but thats not relevant to rpg.

If you choose the aceles or the microbe it makes no difference the outcome is the same.

The rangers - literally makes no difference what you do...the outcome is always the same.

and so on...

The choices are black and white, the entire plot is raildroaded anyway no matter what you say or pick , there is 0 player agency.

The only perk that gives even a mild vibe of RPG is persuasion and thats simply to allow you to avoid combat if you didnt wanna do combat more than it is a reflection of choice.

Beyond that, your background is mostly irrelevant. persuasion is usually more valuable for attaining more items and/or exp and thats about as far as it goes.

The choices you make are an illusion based on a preset outcome that you have essentially no impact on.

This is even more the case for misc missions and activities.

so you are wrong. like categorically, you telling yourself you are roleplaying x and doing that in the game does not make the games offering any more of an RPG than it already isnt.

Lol so ONLY dialog and missions and the start/end of a game determine if its an RPG? If the game gives the player total freedom gameplay wise then those things don't count as roleplaying?

These arguments are picking an choosing very specific points in story/missions and my argument is RPGS are NOT only about dialog choice, or branching storylines. Gameplay choice plays a HUGE role in role playing games an once you disregard a huge part of them your point stars losing credibility.

People have been bombarded with story based RPGs so long that when a game actually gives them decent story AND gameplay freedom to role play, they some how can't see the freedom given to the player.

I've heard the same argument about being forced for be part of constilations ...etc, and I will use the same argument against it.

Its pretty unanimous among RPG fans that Fallout:NV is the best of the RPGs under the bethesda unbrealla (yeah not devs by beth obviously).

In Fallout NV your forced to get shot and buried by Benny. Your forced to wake up in Goodsprings. Your forced to eventually travel to New Vegas to progress the main story. Your forced to choose between 3-4 final options and each one only gives the player more dialog and a slide show at the end of the game.

Since many things are also forced in New Vegas is it also not an RPG? By your own logic New Vegas is just an adventure game with the illusion of choice just like Starfield.

You can literally take the BEGINNING and END of every CRPG story on the market and you can make the argument for it just being a linear story with very little RPG elements if you look at it in the way you do. When you ignore the parts IN-BETWEEN the beginning and the end of an RPG your ignoring 99% of the experience, where the small choices literally shape how you play and what you experience.

you can argue this all day long but your arguments are weak and you just trying to boils things down to their most basic forms to make your point sound valid, which it is not unfortunately.

[Fast]

Originally posted by Mike:

Originally posted by Fast:

no you cannot, you are forced to join constellation, the only changes you can make to any of the faction quests is a choice at the end of which none of it matters lore wise, because nothing changes, if you choose to bench the neuro amp or not, it doesnt matter you still have it.

If you choose the crimson fleet or the Sysdef it doesnt matter because one side will be aggressive to you and the other not. You get a bit more stuff by having the crimson fleet side but thats not relevant to rpg.

If you choose the aceles or the microbe it makes no difference the outcome is the same.

The rangers - literally makes no difference what you do...the outcome is always the same.

and so on...

The choices are black and white, the entire plot is raildroaded anyway no matter what you say or pick , there is 0 player agency.

The only perk that gives even a mild vibe of RPG is persuasion and thats simply to allow you to avoid combat if you didnt wanna do combat more than it is a reflection of choice.

Beyond that, your background is mostly irrelevant. persuasion is usually more valuable for attaining more items and/or exp and thats about as far as it goes.

The choices you make are an illusion based on a preset outcome that you have essentially no impact on.

This is even more the case for misc missions and activities.

so you are wrong. like categorically, you telling yourself you are roleplaying x and doing that in the game does not make the games offering any more of an RPG than it already isnt.

Lol so ONLY dialog and missions and the start/end of a game determine if its an RPG? If the game gives the player total freedom gameplay wise then those things don't count as roleplaying?

These arguments are picking an choosing very specific points in story/missions and my argument is RPGS are NOT only about dialog choice, or branching storylines. Gameplay choice plays a HUGE role in role playing games an once you disregard a huge part of them your point stars losing credibility.

People have been bombarded with story based RPGs so long that when a game actually gives them decent story AND gameplay freedom to role play, they some how can't see the freedom given to the player.

I've heard the same argument about being forced for be part of constilations ...etc, and I will use the same argument against it.

Its pretty unanimous among RPG fans that Fallout:NV is the best of the RPGs under the bethesda unbrealla (yeah not devs by beth obviously).

In Fallout NV your forced to get shot and buried by Benny. Your forced to wake up in Goodsprings. Your forced to eventually travel to New Vegas to progress the main story. Your forced to choose between 3-4 final options and each one only gives the player more dialog and a slide show at the end of the game.

Since many things are also forced in New Vegas is it also not an RPG? By your own logic New Vegas is just an adventure game with the illusion of choice just like Starfield.

You can literally take the BEGINNING and END of every CRPG story on the market and you can make the argument for it just being a linear story with very little RPG elements if you look at it in the way you do. When you ignore the parts IN-BETWEEN the beginning and the end of an RPG your ignoring 99% of the experience, where the small choices literally shape how you play and what you experience.

you can argue this all day long but your arguments are weak and you just trying to boils things down to their most basic forms to make your point sound valid, which it is not unfortunately.

But all the choices you make in starfield are inconsequential.
Nothing you do ever changes any of the outcomes. They are always the same and always inconsequential to the outcome.

The best examples of this are the faction lines but this is present in all facets of the game.

The importance of your choices is basically 0
The game ends in a linear fashion that doesnt care about anything you did.
You could have roleplayed as whatever you like, but the game considers you an miner that got involved in some artifacts no matter what you do.

there are also very few mechanics that support roleplay, the lack of an alignment style system and consequential choices, as well as other character choices based on your back ground are essentially not existent.

The same routes are taken from playthrough 1 to NG+10 it doesnt matter what you pick , or choose or how you play or how you express yourself everytime a roleplay moment appears for you personally, the game doesnt support it.

Also boiling the game down to its basic features would be even worse , because then you are removing the slightly more nuanced presence of physical character options being anything but ways to make the game less difficult over time, whilst removing the sense of roleplay from your character in general by allowing you to be and do all the things whilst offering no system,s to support them.

The idea it is an RPG falls apart the moment any critical thinking is done regards to what exactly is Role Playing in video games and how systems and mechanics make it possible.

Starfield has essentially none.

[Mike]

Originally posted by Fast:

"The idea it is an RPG falls apart the moment any critical thinking is done regards to what exactly is Role Playing in video games and how systems and mechanics make it possible. "

My argument is the opposite as imo those who lack critical thinking are those who say the game has no RPing elements or lacks them because the systems provided create opportunities to RP and its OBVIOUS. Also the fact that you find nothing worth while doing outside of main quests is a YOU problem, as many people (like me) love the open exploration and adventure feel of the game and that's where we find out fun.

This is essentially what the issue boils down to, the age old question. What is ROLE-PLAYING in a video game? Or what makes a game a RPG?

From your responses so far its sounds like you NEED the devs to write RP options for you to feel validated in your build/character choices and if they are not pre-written for you, you feel everything else is pointless (you problem not the game problem). If your still bound by a few extra dialog lines the devs added to fit your particular character/build, is there really true freedom in what your doing? Or are you just following a pre-determined path that justifies your particular thought/mindset for you character?

For me I don't need dialog choices or branching quest paths for a game to fell like an RPG. The SYSTEMS/MECHANICS along with the quest, side quests, procedural quests, TOGETHER is what makes a game feel like an RPG. In Starfeild in particular is the small things that enhance the RPG experience. Like being a bounty hunter and ignoring the main quests to just make money taking down people, Or being a planet surveyor and making all of you money simply by getting survey data to sell. Or just being a menace out in the world and robbing/taking what you want...etc.

Let me ask you this. Is DarkSouls all of a sudden NOT a RPG just because it lacks deep dialog, story branches...etc? Or what about Diablo. Can it not be called an Action "RPG" because there is no deep dialog and branching questlines? Of course not because RPG has a HUGE umbrella that includes all kinds of games and the "RPG" terms does not refer to ONLY story and dialog choices, its also related to GAMEPLAY. What character will you create? What weapons will they use? What skills will they focus on?....etc

Your definition of "RPG" seems to be very limited and it sound like you was expecting a CRPG (classic RPG) like a balders Gate 1-2, Fallout 1-2, Pillars of Eternity, Wasteland 2-3...etc, where the CORE of the game is STORY, dialog Choice, and character specialization in turned based (or real-time) combat.

Sorry to tell you but NO Bethesda games since Fallout 3 has really are going for the CRPG feel, They are more Sandbox RPGs that give players quests, side quests, freedom of exploration, skills/stats to make your own specialized characters, among many many other tools to Role play a certain way to the best of your ability.

[Qoojo]

You're objectively wrong about it not being an RPG. You can hate the game all you want, but that is straight up incorrect.

[Mike]

Originally posted by Your Friend Hana:

What is this? A book club? Reduce your sentences to one line, dudes.

Or......
1. Pick up a book and learn not to fear paragraphs and bigger words (trust me they won't hurt you).
2. Ignore the so called "book club" because even if you tried to read you probably could not comprehend basic sentences.
3. Add something meaningful to the discussion besides showing your lack of reading comprehension.
4. Maybe come up with a better comment that is not so predictable.
5. You seem have an addiction to Hana.

There is my Starfield dialog tree for you to pick from ;)

[Fast]

Originally posted by Qoojo:

You're objectively wrong about it not being an RPG. You can hate the game all you want, but that is straight up incorrect.

how...
An RPG allows you to play a role in a game, you dont, you are a random as member of constellation doing constellation things and some linear railroaded faction quests that all accumulate into multiverse mode / roguelike

The lack of alignment or consequences or choice variation means there isnt a role to play. You are just an empty shell of a character that does the things...

The roleplaying aspect is undermined by the games lack of mechanics and systems that underpin player agency.

You dont have any here.

Im still waiting for someone to explain where the roleplay is...

[Solvem Probler]

Elite Dangerous is a better space simulator and NMS is a better casual game. That is incredibly sad, because both games are not very good.

[Mike]

Originally posted by Fast:

Originally posted by Qoojo:

You're objectively wrong about it not being an RPG. You can hate the game all you want, but that is straight up incorrect.

how...
An RPG allows you to play a role in a game, you dont, you are a random as member of constellation doing constellation things and some linear railroaded faction quests that all accumulate into multiverse mode / roguelike

The lack of alignment or consequences or choice variation means there isnt a role to play. You are just an empty shell of a character that does the things...

The roleplaying aspect is undermined by the games lack of mechanics and systems that underpin player agency.

You dont have any here.

Im still waiting for someone to explain where the roleplay is...

Your making up your own definition of RPG. As I said in my previous post, given your definition Dark Souls, Dragons Dogma, Diablo, Witcher 3,......etc are all not RPGs because they don't fit within you very specific view of RPG's.

Do you not understand that just because you feel some aspects are lacking does not mean is not an RPG.

"Im still waiting for someone to explain where the roleplay is... " My very first post explained MANY ways to role play but you ignore honest criticism to your points and then just repeat the same thing over and over.

Just because you don't like a persons answer does not mean that it is not valid. You can RP as all kinds of stuff in this game and whether you find meaning out of those things or not is irrelevant because your not everyone and neither an I.