Shattered Space hate?

[LeBurns]

So many are making their 'Worse of 2024' lists and many are including Shattered Space (even thought it's a DLC, not a game).

Honestly IMO SS is not bad. What SS added to Starfield is a lot of what is already in Starfield. A lot of things to do ... for no apparent reason. Even the good questlines in SF end up meaning nothing ... maybe a little mention before beginning the Groundhog Day grind as a Starborn.

So we find House Va'ruun and it's in shambles. What would a UC citizen do? Well go to New Atlantis and tell them to ATTACK NOW, we found the home world and they are weak. The FreeStar, the same. Heck even the Crimson Fleet would take the opportunity to sack the place. But no, we are forced to join the cult (or pretend we did) and go through a questline that, as all other questlines, means nothing. Sure you could pick the death ending, but if we don't then what happens? What if you restart the war? Nothing. Does it matter who you put in charge? No. The whole DLC is just another 'thing to do' for 'no apparent reason'. This, IMO, is where Starfield fails overall, and no patch or update is going to fix that.

Shattered Space could have given us some hope with choices/consequences (like in Far Harbor), but no it didn't. And maybe BGS can't have consequences in their games anymore. Maybe the company is so big that doing anything, that changes something else, is just too much work and involves too many separate departments. So we're stuck with a lot to do for nothing.

Do you think a smaller more focused team could give us a better game? Honestly IMO the little indie games are the best things out there now.

[momopovich]

Originally posted by Low Standards:

Originally posted by momopovich:

The map is huge, completing all quests and unique locations takes around 40 hours.

If shattered space is around 40 hours I would consider it worth the price. I guess other people are not including everything then.

The main quest is like 5 to 10 hours long and many reviews have been parotting "shattered space is only 5 hours long" on every media.

[kdodds]

Originally posted by momopovich:

Originally posted by Low Standards:

If shattered space is around 40 hours I would consider it worth the price. I guess other people are not including everything then.

The main quest is like 5 to 10 hours long and many reviews have been parotting "shattered space is only 5 hours long" on every media.

Yeah, 5-10 if you bull rush it and ignore everything else. I take my time, but even still, it took me 80 hours (no deaths/reloads) to 100% the DLC. So, even if you play through faster, as long as you're reading and listening to the story, you're going to get WAY more than 10 hours, I would say a baseline minimum for 100% is probably around 40-60 hours.

[Varanus]

Originally posted by kdodds:

Originally posted by momopovich:

The main quest is like 5 to 10 hours long and many reviews have been parotting "shattered space is only 5 hours long" on every media.

Yeah, 5-10 if you bull rush it and ignore everything else. I take my time, but even still, it took me 80 hours (no deaths/reloads) to 100% the DLC. So, even if you play through faster, as long as you're reading and listening to the story, you're going to get WAY more than 10 hours, I would say a baseline minimum for 100% is probably around 40-60 hours.

Took me about 50 hours to complete everything. So 40-60 average seems accurate.

[Mick Savage]

Originally posted by Neuromante:

A narrative aberration... like a B-movie, it offers nothing new... nothing original... and the actions have no consequences...

Too much money for a handful of grenades and a couple of rifles and some miserable armor...

It's ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ funny that an exploration game has people building all the time...

And that's the rub, it's suppose to be an RPG but nothing we do matters.

The buggy and boring only make it worse.

[LeBurns]

Originally posted by kdodds:

I loved the DLC. I thought it fit very well into the existing world and expanded the Va'ruun lore. I put it right up there with Far Harbor and Dragonborn. Within any game there is a framework of what you can and can not do. As limitless as any game is, there are always limits. BGS RPGs have never produced a scenario where one activity locks out another. It's part of the charm of their games. Choices matter inasmuch as you roleplay them, like all preceding BGS titles. Fan service world changes isn't something they do. Closest you can get in FO:NV, and that was developed by Obsidian.

Before it came out SS was often given comparisons to Far Harbor, which did have choices that had consequences. For example telling the BoS about the Synths, which caused a raid on the Harbor, along with many other Choices/Consequences. When I learned that Will Shen was working on SS (who also worked on FH) my hopes were pretty high that we would get some actually choices that matter again. Note FH is many peoples favorite DLC for a reason. Well, those choices didn't happen in SS, and Will Shen left BGS leaving many to believe his 'creative' game design was being limited with how BGS is currently set up. Thus, leaving me to wonder if BGS has gotten too big, such that making choices that matter can't really even be done anymore.

[momopovich]

Originally posted by LeBurns:

Before it came out SS was often given comparisons to Far Harbor, which did have choices that had consequences.

Most choices in Shattered space have consequences

[LeBurns]

Originally posted by momopovich:

Originally posted by LeBurns:

Before it came out SS was often given comparisons to Far Harbor, which did have choices that had consequences.

Most choices in Shattered space have consequences

If I pull a trigger an NPC can die, I get that. But I really didn't see much else. I may have some side quest that has two possible ending. But does it matter once I step out of that mine/building/POI which I chose? No, not that I could find.

In SS MQ I could die. Okay. Game Over Man. But if I don't die all other choices afterward mean nothing. You can go back to the Settled Systems and it's as if the entire DLC doesn't even exist.

[momopovich]

Originally posted by LeBurns:

Originally posted by momopovich:

Most choices in Shattered space have consequences

If I pull a trigger an NPC can die, I get that. But I really didn't see much else. I may have some side quest that has two possible ending. But does it matter once I step out of that mine/building/POI which I chose? No, not that I could find.

In SS MQ I could die. Okay. Game Over Man. But if I don't die all other choices afterward mean nothing. You can go back to the Settled Systems and it's as if the entire DLC doesn't even exist.

Its about the same for any consequence implementation in all rpgs/bethesda games.

Leave nuka world or Far harbor and its like the DLC map doesnt exist. The way nuka worlds handles reactions with preston garvey is so horrible its actually better to just skip recruiting Preston and do Nuka world first. As for far harbor there is like 1 line mentioning it if you report to the BOS or the railroad.

Sure blowing up the nucleus, acadia or Far harbor feels more dramatic than choosing a leader in Varuunkai, but the choice is still there and world reacts to your choice (npc conversations referring to the new leaders, Dazra turns hostile if you reject the varuun).

[Crix]

I think SF would be more enjoyable for if they didn't have load screens and so much menu navigation.

[Mooman]

This just provides further evidence to my theory that Starfield was meant to be a multiplayer game and Shattered Space was designed around that (content removed from earlier game design).

Think about it. In a multiplayer game there can't be world wide (universe) changes as not everyone will make the same choices. Therefore any changes can only happen in instanced areas.

Also in a multiplayer game you don't want to lock anyone out of content so you make it so everyone can be everyone's friends.

This is how Bethesda are handling FO76 and it seems odd that same design philosophy is being used for Starfield despite it not requiring it, unless it was intended as multiplayer but FO76s reception canned that idea.

[momopovich]

Originally posted by Mooman:

This just provides further evidence to my theory that Starfield was meant to be a multiplayer game and Shattered Space was designed around that (content removed from earlier game design).

Think about it. In a multiplayer game there can't be world wide (universe) changes as not everyone will make the same choices. Therefore any changes can only happen in instanced areas.

Also in a multiplayer game you don't want to lock anyone out of content so you make it so everyone can be everyone's friends.

This is how Bethesda are handling FO76 and it seems odd that same design philosophy is being used for Starfield despite it not requiring it, unless it was intended as multiplayer but FO76s reception canned that idea.

This just provides further evidence that you have absolutely 0 idea what's going on.

You could try very hard to be wronger and still fail, that's actually impressive

[Trump G.O.A.T-POTUS]

The ending sucked hard, I had to put a mod in so it wasn't total game over.

[Trump G.O.A.T-POTUS]

Originally posted by Crix:

I think SF would be more enjoyable for if they didn't have load screens and so much menu navigation.

Don't have a proper PC I guess.

[Dustreaper]

Bethesda cannot write grand things at all. Sometimes you see good things but they seem to become less and less.. Like House va"ruun should be hidden and only have their people because we don't know where it is. What do you find outside a crimson fleet base.. Like totally lazy their heart is not into it anymore all you had to do was add exemptions so stuff like that doesn't happen but they did't so hence all i can think is they don't care anymore.

[momopovich]

Originally posted by Dustreaper:

Like House va"ruun should be hidden and only have their people because we don't know where it is. What do you find outside a crimson fleet base..

The pirates at the mal'siir farm (not a CF base, a varuun facility taken over by pirates) are stranded on varuun'kai and going rogue. It's explained in the slates found at said location.