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atonalginger · 9 months ago

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Mega OC Q&A

I saw @silurisanguine do this with her OC, Seren and thought, "hey that might be a good way to introduce the latest lil misfit in my band of Starfiend OCs." and by little I mean...well you'll see.

I'm going to put the Q&A under a 'read more' cut because this is long.

BASICS

What’s their full name? He doesn't remember if he's ever had a 'real name'. He's pretty sure he did, everyone get's one, right? but He'll never remember it. Instead he chose the name Frost.

What does their name mean? Why were they named that? Frost: a deposit of small white ice crystals formed on the ground or other surfaces when the temperature falls below freezing. He feels liek he should remember why he chose that name but can't.

Do they have any nicknames? He vaguely remembers people he worked with calling him 7-33. Many call him blue eyes.

How old are they? he looks no older than 30 but he is much older. Or is he? How does Unity work with things like that...;)

When’s their birthday? He doesn't know.

What’s their zodiac sign/element/birthstone/etc.? Do they believe that holds any significance? doesn't know and no he would not.

What’s their species/subspecies? Do they have any special/magical abilities? Human -> starborn, if you could consider that a change worth noting. He has all the starborn abilities and is fairly strong with them...though he doesn't initially remember them when he arrives in a new universe. It's...complicated.

What “class” do they belong to (for fantasy characters)? If none, what weapon do they favor? He favors blades and rifles appears to be a master with any.

What do they look like? 6'0" built like a linebacker/wrestler. Dark brown hair, strong jaw, wide nose, thick lips, hooded eyes, and pale skin with a warm undertone. His eyes are icy pale blue with no visible pupil. This is because they are cybernetic/implants. He catches lots of staring but I think it's less to do with the eyes and more the fact that he's damn handsome.

Do they have a face claim? No...he kind of looks like Sgt Yumi's cousin but

What’s their style like? Clothes, hair, makeup? He always wakes up with hair clipped to about 1/2" all over. He also always goes to Enhance! to change it as soon as he has the credits. This go around he went with a professional looking fade but he's gone full long hair in a bun and mohawks and everything in between. No makeup. He tries to keep clothes simple and comfortable. He does prefer v-necks if he can find them because crew cut necklines are constricting. He also prefers jumpsuits because it's less items to worry about getting dirty...

How do they carry themselves? What’s their default expression? Many mistake him for military with the way he carries himself. His default expression is a stone 100 yd stare, though if he sees something that entertains or delights him he might crack a small smile for a moment.

Do they have any physical ailments or disabilities? No. Appears to be in his prime and peak physical health.

Any defining features to their character? From the front it's his eyes. Any other angle its his size/build. The man is imposing when you first see him.

PERSONALITY

What’s their alignment? True neutral. Some would consider him evil, others would consider him a goodie-too-shoe. His only hard and fast rule in the starfield is no killing innocents. Anything else goes, so long as it gets to his end goal...just don't kill innocents in front of him or you're fucking dead.

Which one of the 16 Personality Types do they fit into? It would depend on the universe and what he ended up doing once he remembered himself. He'd also probably scoff at the notion, if not cringe, due to his past.

What are their hobbies and interests? Do they have any particular “favorites” (food, books, and so on)? he has what he considers the bad habit of collecting knives. He considers it a bad habit because he loses them every jump so what's the point? (the point is they bring him joy). His favorite food is a fresh plum. Much to Cora's dismay, Frost doesn't like books. He can't remember why but he gets really uncomfortable and anxious when someone tries to get him to read books.

What are they bad at? socializing. Horribly awkward. Has definitely been teased for being a robot.

What kind of things do they dislike/hate? Spacers. They find that lot vicious raiders and does not tolerate their presence anywhere. Universalism. He was raised under a very...unique (to us) form of Universalism and because of it he does not trust members of any universe. Popcorn. The kernels always get wedged between his teeth or caught in the back of his throat and it makes his stomach hurt.

Do they have any vices/addictions/mental illnesses? As what is left of his memory comes back to him each jump he gets deeply depressed and anxious. If anyone could get him into a psych's office they'd probably diagnose him with more but I don't se that happening anytime soon and I don't feel comfortable diagnosing him here.

What are their goals and motivations? Figuring out if he can get back core memories that appear gone. Getting the artifacts, making the next jump. Understanding the purpose of it all.

What are their manners like? Any habits? Around most he is quiet. Sometimes it almost feels like he talks in riddles. he's introverted and prefers traveling alone and working alone but will make sacrifices to move things along. He is polite with most, curt with those he doesn't feel deserves the effort. he's a pen twirler/tapper when anxious.

What are they most afraid of? Not remembering anymore

BACKGROUND

Where were they born? What was their childhood like? Frost was born in a rare universe unlike any of the universes he has jumped to since. He doesn't know what planet he was born on but he does know, though it's fuzzy, that he grew up in an underground facility on a planet with 1g. He was trained to kill and hunt from a very young age and used as a child soldier/assassin as his leaders needed.

What’s their family like? He never knew his family. Or if he did, the memory was taken from him. He grew up in a pod of 11 other child soldiers but they weren't really allowed to bond or socialize.

What factions or organizations are they a part of? What ranks and titles do they hold? He was raised by an extremists form of Universalism. They believed that God had chosen them to bring humanity to the stars and any who did not stand with them should be exterminated to make way for God's Glory. They were at war with the Va'ruun as well as the UC and FC. He was used as a child assassin until he was 15 when he was sent to serve as a 'groundpounder' in UC space as the Univeralists attempted to capture the Sol system. When he reached his late 20s he was chosen for the honor of traveling to Unity to spread the word of God across the multiverse. Something...went wrong with the device as he entered it...but he doesn't quite remember...sabotage?

How do they fit into their “story”? It was only after the initial jump that Frost had any real control over his story. He was always a tool for others to wield. The first universe he found himself in...he got into a lot of trouble really fast when he behaved the way he was trained and has since then tried to better himself...he thinks. None of the universes he ends up in make sense to him. Nothing is ever like his home. No one can tell him anything about the various chips and implants in his head or body. Many have never seen anything like it and insist they have to be anomalies in the scans. Someone once said they seemed to be made out of a weird metal that was unlike anything they'd ever seen before...and he's pretty sure that metal is the same as the artifacts.

Where do they currently live? What’s their place like? in his current universe? The Lodge in the room Noel showed him. It's really nice and he's afraid to touch anything just like every other time he's ended up there. Otherwise he's on a ship, currently the Frontier. It's cramped and old.

How do they eventually die? Depending on how you view unity...he's died a lot. How will he die die? Probably by chance, some lucky bastard getting a shot in while he's distracted. Maybe someone will finally figure out how to overpower him. But that doesn't seem likely, given how many universes he's seen.

RELATIONSHIPS

Do they have any friends? Would they consider anyone to be their best friend? He will come to call Doc, Fox, and Sam friend. he always likes Vasco. He doesn't have a best friend, Unity doesn't let him keep those.

What’s their friend group like? What role do they play in it? A rowdy, wild bunch this go around. They cavort with a group called the Liberated, made up of former Crimson Fleet members. Fox is a Ranger and a Vanguard, which makes Frost's head hurt. Doc is a historian who hunts spacers in her spare time. She's the one who found him, along with her partner, Sam.

What’s their love life like? Do they have any kids? Pretty non-existent and no. He's had lovers across plenty of universes but he's shy to talk about them.

Who do they look up to? Who do they trust? Look up to? no one anymore. He doesn't put people on pedestals, given what he can remember. He trusts his friends.

Who do they hate? Do they have any enemies? Spacers. Naeva Mora, he's had a lot of run-ins with her and they'll never get along. Commander Ikande, he thinks he's a wolf in sheep's clothing and something about the Commander reminds him of someone from his childhood. Lillian Hart, she reminds him of one of his handlers growing up. Matteo, he knows Matteo isn't like those of his Universe but when he tries to argue with Frost about 'true Univeralism" all chances at neutrality disappeared. He won't hurt the man, but he won't interact with him either.

Do they have any pets? nope.

Are they good with kids? Animals? He's been told he is, though they make him uncomfortable (both kids and animals). He's afraid he'll hurt them or scare them but kids find him interesting. Cora has lots of questions and when he briefly meets little Sophie she seems enamored by his eyes and isn't scared of his stone stoic face.

Which tropes do they fit? Which archetypes? Stoic ronin

Do they play any instruments? Sports? no and no

What are some items they always carry? a knife, at least one suppressed pistol, a pack of spiced mealworms and a pack of water, a scanner.

Do they collect anything? Knives. He shouldn't, he's just going to lose them all but he can't help it.

What position do they sleep in? it's whatever. You can find him sleeping on his back like a plank, on either side, his stomach, sprawled out on a chair...he was trained to sleep wherever and wake with the first alarm.

Which emoji would they use the most? knife emoji

What languages do they speak? English, Japanese, Russian, and Spanish. He doesn't remember learning any of them.

What’s their favorite expletive? Fuck

What’s their favorite candle scent? food scents like baked goods. A warm vanilla is nice too.

What songs remind you of them? Self-Destruction by I Prevail

Which animal would you say represents them? Tiger (lone hunters, strong, cunning)

What stereotypical high school clique would they fit into? He looks like he's be a jock but personality puts him with the freaks and geeks crowd.

What would their favorite ride at an amusement park be? they'd all be boring for him.

Do they believe in aliens? Ghosts? Reincarnation or something else? aliens, like sapient life? Sure, why not! To some people he's and alien so yeah. Ghosts? jury is out on that. Reincarnation? The starborn? Yea, he believes in that lol

Do they follow any religions/gods? Do they celebrate holidays? NO he is an atheist now. Never got into holidays, never really in a single universe long enough to learn them.

Which Deadly Sin do they most correspond to? Which Heavenly Virtue? Wrath. Diligence.

If you had to choose one tarot card to represent them, which would it be? Knight of wands

1. How does your OC feel about their full name? he likes Frost, it's why he chose it.

2. What do strangers notice about them first? If they see his face it's his eyes. Otherwise its his build/stature.

3. How does their social personality differ from how they act when they’re alone? It doesn't really? He's quicker to anger when alone because he knows most people don't like that sort of thing and/or he doesn't want to scare people. But otherwise there isn't a big difference.

4. How do they act around a crush? awkward.

5. Do they have a “tell” for when they’re lying? He gets really stiff and can't make eye contact. He was never good at infiltration missions back in his og universe where he was expected to interact with people.

6. What do they smell like? he doesn't wear scents because it draws attention but he probably faintly smells of gun oil.

7. What is their hair texture like? thick and straight.

8. How much jewelry do they wear, and do they have a favorite or distinguishing piece? none. he loses everything so no need to and besides that jewelry was always considered a safety risk by his trainers/handlers. Rings can lose you a finger, piercing can get caught/ripped out. Necklaces can be grabbed. Same with bracelets.

9. Do they have a word or phrase that they tend to overuse? I don't think he talks enough for that to be a problem. When talking with Doc he's mention "you sing" "they sing" the plates that sing" so....sings.

10. What is a weird quality that they have (ie their hands are always cold, they’re always hungry, they snort when they laugh, etc)? He's very quiet. His 'outside' voice is most peoples 'inside' voice.

11. What color do they look strikingly good in? Navy blue

12. How do they show affection to someone they love? staying close to them, performing lots of favors, smiles.

13. Do they make strong/frequent eye contact when they talk to someone? oh no, he will avoid eye contact if he can help it. He can do it in business situations but it makes him super uncomfortable. He was raised to never look superiors in the eyes.

14. What attributes do they have that are inherited from their parents or shared with their siblings/other relatives? ...not applicable.

15. Are their greatest flaw and their greatest strength related and in what way? (ie very caring and helpful but a doormat, or very observant and shrewd but often paranoid) I think so. he's a very diligent person, always making sure that the task is done right the first time and completely...which means if it comes to violence there will be no survivors to question. Or for non-violent situations it means the task will take much longer.

16. How has their childhood affected the way they view an aspect of their life (people, education, society, themselves, etc)?

-He are slow to trust anyone, unless that person can quickly show him a reason to trust them. Like Doc and Sam win him over quickly because they help him out of a really bad situation and are kind. -His education was very narrow and specific so there's a lot he struggles with as he jumps/travels. -He doesn't trust the factions, their leaders, or the various religious houses of the Starfield. Not even the Enlightened. In his opinion if they were true atheists they wouldn't have organized. -He is often at odds with himself due to the large gaps in his memory. Whenever he wakes in a new universe he is left with minimal memories and it isn't until he starts finding the artifacts that chunks of his past start to come back to him. He has had lives where his first artifact came to him after living as a pirate for years and being horrified with what he'd done. His one hard and fast rule is no Killing innocents but he has the blood of so many on his hands from his OG universe and beyond.

Basically I envision Frost as potentially an OG starborn from the universe the artifacts were developed in. Even if that isn't the case, that universe figured out how to use the metal the artifacts (and I assume temples and anomaly structures) were made of and designed cybernetics and implants with it. He is permanently missing chunks of his memory because his handlers wiped it. And whenever he jumps Unity seems to wipe some away and block the rest, leaving only a select collection of memories and skills for him to keep. Proximity to the artifacts and those who've pulled them from the rock can help him remember. He doesn't know why.

He wants to be a good person. He doesn't know that he can be with the life he's led. He has definitely sided with the Hunter more than the Emissary because he felt less judged/more accepted. Even if the Hunter broke his only rule...he's guilty of that too.

#starfield #the coemancer crew #OC Frost #starborn #starfield spoilers #behold my beautiful tragic starborn

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devsgames · 1 year ago

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Starfield Has A Direction Problem (A.K.A. 3000 words on Starfield)

(This was cross-posted from my Patreon. Please consider supporting to help support the work that I do and get early acess to articles and game prototypes! Also there will be spoilers for Starfield in this post, so avoid reading if you care about that!)

I want to paint a picture for you.

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I enter the secret United Colonies space station, taking stock of the cargo workers mulling on around me. For all intents and purposes, they think me and my associate Andreja are one of them, unloading cargo from an unassuming freighter. In reality however, we're on a mission for the Crimson Fleet - the nastiest pirates in the galaxy who are willing to blackmail, cheat, and steal their way to riches. We're here to pilfer some top secret ship technology; if we don't get shot trying.

I enter a room and in my haste one of the guards stop me. They question me, and my answers fail to meet their scrutiny. They realize I'm not one of them and start firing at me. Things are about to get ugly.

Before I know it, my companion Andreja and I are weapons hot, firing a hail of bullets at the soldiers who stand the hallway across from us. It's now do or die to get our hands on this tech - and I'm not planning on dying today. We cut through the cargo bay, crossed by fleeing and cowering dock workers, scientists and engineers. Sure, they're innocents in our battle, but this is a dirty job and they're witnesses to our larceny; they have to go. "You won't get away!", Andreja screams at them at the top of her lungs before firing a few quick shots of her beam rifle into their face. Another problem dealt with.

Next to their still-warm corpses I notice a stack of medical supplies ripe for the taking amongst the cargo, and I pilfer them as they're sure to come in useful on the way to our objective.

Suddenly I hear Andreja's voice chime in from behind me, the derision audibly coming in thick through her teeth: "What? We're resorting to stealing now?!", she asks while harbouring zero semblance of irony or awareness.

---

This was extra confusing considering that when I first joined Constellation - essentially the 'explorer's guild' of the Starfield universe as well as the main story faction - its leader Sarah Morgan pulled me aside and explicitly said 'we don't care who you are or what you get up to, as long as you're interested in discovering the secrets of the universe you're a welcome member here :)". My character Nicoletta was a no-nonsense, get-it-done-by-any-means-necessary type of person, so the proposition sounded great! I could do whatever I want and as long as I was exploring the universe Constellation wouldn't mind!

Little did I realize this was only true insofar as they wouldn't kick me out of the main story for being evil - however, it did mean that every single main story character would hate my guts for doing anything that bordered on criminal or non-morally-resolute.

If it seems like a confusing direction choice to penalize a player for deviating from a standard moral code in a game ostensibly labelled a "roleplaying" game where you play as a character of your own creation that's because...well, it sorta is, and at 30+ hours in that's really been the bulk of my experience with the game.

I wouldn't go so far to say that as an experience Starfield is "good" or "bad" - it certainly has its ups and downs and I've found about as much to enjoy from it as I have to dislike. However, I have a ton of feelings about how it chooses to present itself, and it's something I haven't been able to stop thinking about in the few months I've been exploring it. In fact, my 30+ hours of Starfield has felt like a series of similar confused themes and decisions that create what I can only describe as an intensely fascinating identity crisis.

According to the The Washington Post for Starfield, Todd Howard described Starfield as addressing the question "And now man is living amongst the stars: what does that mean?". I think to some extent I would agree that Starfield is fundamentally about people. While it's a sci-fi game set in the year 2310, you can tell its focused on people and their experiences with the world and tries to focus in on what that would mean. Characters will have mundane, everyday conversations on the backdrop of a gorgeous alien landscapes or utopian cities, side quests often involve solving minor disputes or helping folks with very mundane human problems, your character's animation features them adjusting a small interface panel into position to accommodate themselves as they settle into place in their pilot chair. To some extent the game is aware that people living in this world is a core part of its identity.

But on the other hand, it doesn't carve quite enough into what that really means, and many of these ideas feel like they didn't provide themselves with a leg to stand on.

Take the worldbuilding itself; it's only been two hundred and fifty years since mankind left Earth, and no one really mentions where they came from. There's colonies and factions people will identify themselves as, but nothing really outside the lore of the Starfield universe. There is no concept of old nationalities, rivalries, religions or anything of the like - as if the intention was to completely wash itself free of Earth and all it entails in order to have a blank creative slate.

Heck, as far as Starfield is concerned there are now only three religions:

- "Enlightened", basically space humanists

- "Sanctum Universum", essentially a Monotheistic God religion (sorry Muslims, Christians and Jews, etc. you're Sanctum Universum now! Don't ask about plural religions I guess)

- "House Va'ruun", a fictional religion around a Snake God

While it might work for something like The Elder Scrolls which is more focused on 'fun' worldbuilding and not grounded in realism, it's baffling to me for a game to claim to be about people and boil down the core element of the modern day world like this.

I mean, in our modern world people still harbour feelings, biases and grudges going back hundreds (and sometimes thousands) of years, and Starfield would somehow prefer you to pretend simply because the Earth no longer existed all those things are no longer a factor. There's some hints that some people might know about their original Earth ethnicity or nationalities...but also people still clearly have skin tones and different (often heavy) accents! It seems like an essential step of worldbuilding to include stuff like this in a very near-future space game, especially if the direction for your game claims to be about people. In the span of 200 years oral history is somehow largely gone, and Earth to most is a distant curiosity as opposed to a place of origin. What it really feels like is that it wanted to be relevant to the modern day, but so far removed that it doesn't have to deal with the real-world baggage that might entail.

I think this is sort of a pattern Starfield establishes for itself though; desperate to say something, and yet constantly puts itself in a position where it refuses to say anything at all.

You can tell even in its visual direction which Lead Artist Istvan Pely describes as "NasaPunk". Now, putting aside my absolute disdain for the habit of people arbitrarily tacking "-punk" on aesthetics to create aesthetics that aren't counterculture in any sense: Starfield is certainly about NASA. Main story missions have to explore old NASA facilities, you find NASA products as loot, and read NASA logs about previous space missions. NASA is mentioned many times by name, and features prominently in the game. The art direction of the tech in the game certainly seem inspired by modern NASA technologies extrapolated to a near-future setting.

And what does it do with this fixation on bringing NASA tech into it's world? Well...it proceeds to tell a story featuring (spoilers) unrealistically expansive city complexes, multi-dimensional space travel and alien races beyond human comprehension. It stylizes and builds upon """NASA-punk""" into its aesthetic and then tells a story via scenarios that feel very irrelevant to that fixation. It grounds itself in the modern world and chooses to abandon that entirely. NASA here serves a brand activation (and, if I'm honest, like someone on the directorial team just happened to think NASA is cool). Whatever NASA is to this game, it's not a game direction.

To that end, the story of Starfield runs a similar gambit. Now, you might be surprised when I tell you that I think Starfield takes some of the most bold and impressive story and gameplay choices I've seen in a big-budget video game in recent memory. You might be less surprised when I tell you it does absolutely nothing with them, and in fact winds up making them ultimately incredibly rote.

For example, in a story mission you suddenly find yourself hopping between dimensions (a la Titanfall 2). You stumble through a facility trapped between two dimensions, talking to people on either side, and have to eventually choose which dimension to save and which to sacrifice in order to stabilize the continuum between them. It's actually pretty cool! There's interesting puzzles to solve, an interesting moral choice to make, fun variety of combat encounters - it was altogether interesting to play!

However, at the end of it all the 'save a dimension choice' is intensely mechanical in a video-gamey sort of way: One dimension gives you a new follower, while the other gives you better loot. Nothing outside of the one location you do the mission in changes, no one outside the facility is different or comments on the choice you made, and honestly the follower you get for making the one choice isn't even that interesting or core to the narrative. On the outside world for all intents and purposes you'd never know you *changed dimensions* at all.

Another point midway through the game has your group, Constellation, under attack by an unknown alien presence. You have to make a choice between two locations to try and save your companions at. In either case, one main cast companion whose affinity is highest towards you will die if you don't choose their location.

It's pretty bold to kill a main member of the cast mid-way through the game, and I'll certainly give Starfield credit for trying a move like that! However...you're now missing the one member of the cast you ostensibly liked the most, only for them to adopt a moderately antagonist role later. Maybe it's because I struggled to gain attachment to any member of my crew, but this moment felt incredibly flat thanks to how the main narrative had presented itself up to that point.

Take Constellation: Constellation itself intrudes itself on the game in a large way, both by being tied heavily in with the main story, and also insisting on the player a specific path to take. As I mentioned, none of the members of Constellation are comfortable with you doing evil, but all of them are very happy when you do good. Because you frequently have a member of Constellation lurking over your shoulder as you go about exploring the world and doing their quests, you'll frequently be backed into a moral corner of "doing the right thing to make your associates happy"; you end up following the path the story wants you to take more than carving your own. In fact, many members of "Constellation" get upset with you if you express that you're not really interested in the premise of "exploration" and "mysteries of the universe" that they present to you in the first place, especially since it's near exclusively the only thing they ever talk about.

In many cases - perhaps unsurprisingly give Constellation's affiliations - the moral choices the game seems most happy for you to take are exceedingly middle-of-the-road and good-aligned (but ultimately centrist) ones. In one instance when I discovered the corrupt leader of a mining colony was an asshole who was making all the worker's lives a huge pain in the butt, I blackmailed him and got him fired with the hopes it could help inspire change for the workers...only for a high-ranking military man to butt in and arbitrarily take his place instead. It felt like a shallow victory, yet one that the game seemingly expected me to be happy with.

I've also found much of the dialog with the members of Constellation to be a slog because...well, they're always talking about Constellation and the events that are occurring in the story. Now this isn't inherently bad, but so many conversations with them feel like "Telling" instead of "Showing".

The limits of your interactions with the cast involve a follower tapping your shoulder to say "Boy I cannot believe [x major story event] just happened!", to which you respond, "Yeah crazy right" and then you go on with doing whatever you were doing. Each will have a major story mission to do for them, but often it feels like they're just props set in place to remark upon major story events and not really contribute much in a way that feels impactful to you. On top of this, the bulk of the main story missions involve going to the same landmarks scattered across the world to unlock powers in the exact same manner as the last time. The game clearly really really wants you to care about Constellation and everything happening to these people and the events around them as they're central figures to the whole game, but the way this is presented to you so rarely feels like it seeks to justify that to the player.

Again, this isn't to say there's nothing redeemable about these interactions! Initially, I actually really enjoyed my time talking to Sarah Morgan about the events that transpired. I loved the cast of characters and how human they all felt, until I realized how rote those conversations were as I repeated the same conversations with each of them individually with each and every member, talking about the exact same event seven different times. It's a muddy and confused mess of systems that chugs along with the weight of itself, but not implicitly one without purpose.

Sort of like the planet exploration too. In this day and age, making a space game almost has to come hand-in-hand with exploration, and it's evident that the weight of open-world exploration isn't one Starfield could technically deliver on with its constraints. Every planetary area is limited and auto-generated on entry; it's not seamless like No Man's Sky, though it is technically very open-ended as you can land anywhere on the surface of a planet.

But the more I play of it the more I wonder...why would I? I can earn money for scanning everything on every planet, sure. But the wildlife is largely similar to one another on each planet. I've explored an "Abandoned Muybridge Pharmaceuticals Lab" and "Abandoned Mining Platform" about six times now. Every planet has roughly the same encounters, events and landmarks. It's probably more true to life or """NASAPUNK""" this way (I mean, most planets are definitely just going to be big empty rocks, right?) but functionally I have seen enough at this point that I feel no obligation to explore anymore. It clearly had this ambition to provide untethered space exploration and what it entails, but didn't seem interested enough in that to maintain that commitment longer than it needed to.

Even to the cities and populate locales this is an issue. I was admittedly shocked to learn that if I stood in the middle of a major metropolitan area and shot my guns at people's feet no one would bat an eye. Civilians would continue to go about their day, Security forces would continue their conversations. Unless you're explicitly murdering people, no one cares how loud or disruptive or hostile you seem in the cities in the game. In a world that visually feels so real and goes to great extents to claim it wants you feel like there are humans here, it certainly struggles to convince you of its humanity.

---

You can tell I've clearly been thinking about Starfield a lot. I have no idea why. As I said, I don't really like it nor do I dislike it. It's not incredibly noteworthy, and probably bound to be forgotten.

I think I'm captivated by it because I can see the work put into it - it's definitely the least buggy Bethesda games I've ever played (an impressive feat for a game so large in scale), and there's a lot of heart to be found in certain moments of it. I didn't work on it and likely will never know exactly what happened in its production but to me it feels like evidence that a game can be technically impressive, with a huge budget and good design choices, but if the high-level vision of the game can't be established or maintained throughout it then it's only going to struggle to remember what it's trying to be.

I can't stop thinking about Todd Howard's description of the game's premise, and how it perfectly summarizes my feelings on Starfield: "And now man is living amongst the stars: what does that mean?".

Though Todd probably felt that Starfield was supposed to be the answer to that question, it really feels like Starfield ended up being that question in itself.

You're right Todd, "what does that mean?".

#starfield #game design #blog #patreon #video game #video games #pc gaming #pc game #bethesda #starfield game

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yernemm · 1 year ago

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Starfield Gameplay Tips

AKA Stuff that the game doesn't do a great job at telling you about but it's good to know (no spoilers)

(I play with mouse and keyboard so I'm not sure about controller bindings for these)

Object manipulation and decoration

Grab objects without picking them up by holding E

When you picked up an object, use left and right click to rotate it

Tap shift to change the rotation axis (there's no visual indicator for this for some reason)

You can also throw a picked up object by pressing R

You can also move dropped objects around inside an outpost by entering edit mode in the build menu

When positioned in edit mode, placed objects are "stuck" down, they no longer seem to be affected by physics. This is a great way to decorate your outpost

Other cool stuff

In the inventory on the space suits screen, there's an option to automatically hide the suit in cities

Similarly, there's an option to automatically hide the helmet in breathable areas on the helmets screen

In space, hold E (with no target selected) to get up from your pilot seat and walk around your ship.

In the ship builder, double click any module to select all connected modules. This is great for moving around large chunks of the ship, but also extremely useful when you run into the problem where the game is telling you that *something* isn't connected but you have no idea what it is. Just double click the cockpit and any loose parts won't be selected.

Several cities have an "Enhance" store. This place lets you completely remake your character, including renaming, changing body type, face, etc. This only costs 500 credits so don't worry if you're not happy with how your character looks initially. You can't change your background or traits though.

Stuff the game tells you but some players missed

When in scanner mode (both on foot and in the ship) look at any objective or marker and you get the option to travel there without opening the map. This is especially nice in your ship, as you can easily fly between different planets and star systems without ever opening the star map.

In the ship, tap E to cycle your target and ESC to deselect your target. Especially useful in combat or when you wanna talk to a ship (you can hail and talk to any ship you see)

When modifying a ship, any loose items are placed in the ship's inventory so make sure to check that if you lost something (I wouldn't recommend decorating the ship's interior for this reason)

If you have multiple ships, they don't really have individual storage. All ship cargo is moved to your home ship whenever you switch ships. This can even result in ships carrying more than their max capacity when moving to a smaller ship.

There's a quick melee button

You can favorite weapons and items to assign them to your number keys

Opening your scanner shows a path to the objective on the floor

B-b-bonus tip

Your photo mode pics are in Documents/My Games/Starfield/Data/Textures/Photos

If you have other stuff that you didn't know for a while, let me know, and I might add it to the list. Hope this helps :^)

#starfield #gaming #bethesda

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bowserisgay · 1 year ago

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You know what, I think I've just realized most gamers are kind of too normies to enjoy themes that aren't handed to them on a silver platter. I swear seeing someone say that they thought of Skyrim as "intellectually stimulating" when talking about their problems with Starfield, made me say "WHAT" out loud, I have many complaints with starfield honestly, but it's writing is better than almost all of Skyrim, I never felt engaged by Skyrim's combat, even with every mod ever it's just swing block and heavy swing, every bow in the game feels the same to use, and magic just does not feel like it can replace those two. Starfeild has good gunplay, and while the NPCs aren't brilliant by any means, they do have mechanics other than just "run at you" or "stand at 15 feet away and use ranged attacks" I felt actually rewarded for carrying multiple weapon types, specializing in a single weapon like Skyrim encourages means that combat later in the game becomes a chore.

I think starfeilds biggest strengths are; the combat, even ship combat, the significantly lower stakes in the "main quest" which helps you actually do other things without severe tonal whiplash, and the sheer vastness of the content, so much content is hand made, and a lot of the quests have compelling stories, there is so much to the game, I am honestly likely to get another 100 hours out of the game.

As I said starfeild is not a 5 star kind of game, maybe it's a 4 I think it's weaknesses tend to feel a bit... fallout 3 ish.

My biggest gripe is honestly that there is no pacifist route, this might seem silly because, yeah it's a Bethesda game, but they specifically added EM damage so you could use non lethal takedowns, which is useful for some quests, but not in big story beats, the end of the freestar rangers questline is the prime example. So many people you are forced to kill if persuasion fails, or if the game is making you pick between [attack] or something morally bankrupt, and you can't just stun everyone. There are some other minor gripes mainly with random bits of random content that's very out of place, and randomly generated bits sometimes will just not make sense (food and drink left out on a planet with no atmosphere, 99% of earth being sandy desert)

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catgirltoofies · 11 months ago

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related to previous reblog. the most important thing i have found about playing video games with too much free time is that they have to earn my time. i have a thousand games i can be playing, if yours happens to be the one i picked, then at least for a moment, if only for the novelty, I'm having fun with it. the moment the novelty wears off, or when i stop having fun, i stop playing and find something else. sometimes I'll keep playing for a bit every day and kinda wean off it, but when that happens it doesn't look good.

so, how do you retain my interest? there's a few ways.

first. novelty. i love new things. i love playing around with stuff i don't understand and figuring out how it works. that's important, however; i like figuring out how it works. once i understand it, it becomes a lot less interesting, and unfortunately my brain doesn't work in a way that lets me just allow things to go un-understood, i need to figure out why things work the way they do, unless the complexity is out of scope of my interest; eg i wouldn't bother trying to catalogue every planet in starfield, I'm not that interested in the game.

second. fun. if the game is fun i will play it. if the game is not fun i will not play it. obviously fun is subjective, and everyone has different amounts of fun with every activity. but fun is the reason i will play picross for hours, it's why I'll play tons of games that give me checklists to fill out (recent examples: pokemon legends arceus and power wash simulator) because i greatly enjoy filling out checklists. it's why i tend to lose interest in a lot of turn based games; the mechanics are simple enough that i grasp them quickly and the execution isn't very interesting once i know what's going on under the hood. little things that break up the mechanics and make them work a little differently, such as most of pokemon's gimmicks, are extremely interesting - for a time. once i find a meta, i stick with it. why would i do something worse for no benefit? the obvious exception to this would be challenge runs, which i tend to not be very interested in doing, because they're usually just "do the worse thing for the whole game". in the case of action and shooter games, i need to have weapon variety and enemy variety. there's a longer post i could make about the types of games, but out of scope for this one; in general, i need to have options and i need to have different potential challenges. if I'm just given a sword and basic attack, it doesn't matter how many enemies you put in front of me, they all die to my sword or are invulnerable. if I'm given a million different and unique guns, it doesn't matter when there's only three enemy types, my interest will only last as long as i keep trying new and mechanically unique weapons; that is to say, all full auto guns are functionally the same, they just differ in attack speed and damage output. give me a machine pistol at the start and an lmg at the end, they're used the same way. just changing the stats isn't mechanically unique.

third. story. obviously, a good story will hook me, as it would hook most people. and obviously, different people like different stories. once i get hooked on a story, i need to see it through, and that will keep me playing a game - it's why i finished starfield, it's why i finished horizon. at the same time, a mediocre story that doesn't hook me but gets in the way of me having more fun - such is the case with disgaea - tends to turn me off, because i don't particularly want to do the story i don't care about, especially - as is the case with disgaea - when I'm far more powerful than the story expects me to be.

fourth. replayability. this one is really complicated for me, as a lot of infinitely replayable games don't interest me, such as the entire roguelite genre, while a lot of infinitely replayable games do interest me, such as a large portion of the roguelike genre and most 4X games. i think, for me, the replayability comes from starting from nothing and building up to something great based on what's currently available on that run. this is the draw of the rogue derivatives, but roguelites tack on meta progression, so i can unlock items or characters or mechanics or whatever, but i really really really hate it when things are arbitrarily locked away from me. if I'm playing cataclysm and i see a gun store with a really cool rifle in the window, i know i probably can't get it just yet, until i find a hacksaw to break through the window, or a jackhammer or pickaxe to break through the wall, or a lockpick to get in through the back door, or some heavy bashing thing like a sledgehammer to break through the doors, and so on so forth. the important thing at that point i see it is that i know that i can get it, i just need to get some other key item first. with roguelites, i don't get that experience - unlockables are silhouetted behind arbitrary challenges, and then added to the random pool of items. that's not interesting. i don't want to kill fifty enemies with a certain damage type to unlock something i don't know the effect of. it's a checklist with no clear reward - it's a weapon, or an item, but what does it do? why would i want it over my current weapon which I've been using for the whole game so far? if i end up wasting my time doing the challenge to get something worse - which then reduces the odds I'll get a weapon i like more - that feels awful. it's a similar but different thing with 4X games; in those games, i have immediate access to a small pool of resources, and as i explore and expand, i gradually get more, and the resources i get in abundance inform how I'll grow my empire; this is especially noticeable in games such as the endless series, where unique resources tend to have two opposite paths, and you decide which path to follow depending on which resources you have greater access to. and, of course, it's different with every game, so i can't plan ahead knowing I'll have access to a particular material, or i need to specifically seek out that material if i really really want it and expand to them (or conquer over them) when they are revealed.

fifth. graphics. personally, i don't care about fancy graphics. i need to know what I'm looking at, i need to be able to reasonably interact with the world, and ideally i don't hate what I'm seeing. i tend to play roguelikes with tilesets so i can more easily understand what's what, and i don't much like the appearance of ascii, as pretty as it can be when done right. i like stylized graphics a lot - borderlands, team fortress 2, disgaea up to 5, pokemon up to gen 5 - they have particular styles that stand out and make me like them a lot. it's especially noticeable once those styles are uprooted - as in disgaea 6 and pokemon gen 6 - and the artists have to figure out how to emulate the old style with a new medium that just can't match the old style. i think so far pokemon still hasn't recovered from the switch to 3D models, but from what I've seen, they are actually starting to improve. a lot of gen 9 models look a lot better than the models in gen 6. one game series which i think has fully recovered - or, indeed, never failed - from the switch from 2D sprites to 3D models is dragon quest. dragon quest 11 looks fantastic, and the 3D models look incredible and just as stylised as the 2D sprites. even in dragon quest 9, on the DS, the models look incredible. according to a bit of research, the 2D->3D change happened in dragon quest 7, and even in that game the models looked great. the point I'm making here is, stylization and some intangible Thing makes graphics great, not realism; i refer to that intangible thing as soul, but it's what makes a particular game's appearance read as that game's. for example, you can look at the models of link in the 3D Zelda games, and as long as you have a bit of familiarity, you can instantly recognize which game he's from based solely on his model. the main exceptions are the sequel games which use a very similar model and the same stylization. when we get the next Zelda game, i bet it's going to be an entirely different style from all the prior 3D zeldas.

what's my point with all this? i dunno. there's a lot of potential in a lot of games, and there's always so much done so right, and most often the reason a game fails is because they did so many things so wrong. i predict the avatar game is going to flop because a lot of people are starting to get bored of the ubisoft formula, i expect it won't be mechanically interesting enough for me, and it's seventy fucking dollars. I'm probably gonna enjoy it once i get it on sale for like twenty bucks in a few months, because i still tend to like the ubisoft formula (checklist of towers to unlock and outposts to clear!) but it's gonna otherwise be pretty underwhelming. and I'll probably get bored before i finish it and play something more entertaining.

#video games #rant

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lordfrezon · 1 year ago

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The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

10/10

There’s a million things I can say about this game, and they’re all good.

But if you need a single reason why this game rocks, it’s because it lets the player have as much fun as they can.

TotK, like BotW before it, gives the player a massive array of tools and ways to interact with the game. You have weapons and armor, sure, but you also have an array of powers that let you move and change the game world in different cool ways. But the obvious stand out here is the Zonai Devices, a ton of physics devices that the game lets you craft into weapons, vehicles, utility devices, and much more. If you’ve seen anything about the game, you’ve definitely seen some of the War Crime Machines people have made, and those are great, but you can also make efficient hovercraft, boxes that let you jump higher, and much more. Plus, one of your powers lets you replicate devices you’ve made in the past, so you can always have your favorites close at hand. And if you don’t have the exact parts, the power replicates them using a rather common resource.

The world you interact with remains absolutely fantastic. A massive open world featuring all sorts of enemies, locations, treasures, and everything else you’d want to find in a RPG. Like its predecessor, like Skyrim, like Elden Ring, you always want to be exploring so you can find that next new thing. Whether it’s a new armor piece, a stronger weapon, or just more crafting materials, there’s always something to find and always something worth discovering.

There’s also a story here, far more visible and present in the game than that of BotW. No spoilers here, but there’s a lot of excellent setups and payoffs, and everything that happens in the game is contextualized through various cutscenes and dialogue options. While some of it might get repetitive, it’s still solid, and the characters don’t overstay their welcomes.

Two minor nitpicks have to be brought up. The weapon durability and rain from BotW reappear, both doing their best to annoy the hell out of you. While rain remains the most antagonistic feature to your exploration, TotK does a lot to make weapon durability mean something by including a very cool crafting system, where you combine materials you’ve found with your weapons to make them stronger. It encourages seeking out different types of enemies to obtain different classes of weapon, and while there are a few clear superior options, there’s no real mistakes in how you can fuse your weapons either. Was it worth having degrading weapons? Probably not, but it’s defensible in ways that the system in BotW wasn’t.

One last major gripe is that Nintendo is a garbage company when it comes to everything surrounding copyright, IP law, treatment of workers, basically everything that plagues capitalism, so I can’t recommend buying the game without caveats. That said, if you’re a fan of a certain Japanese lemon (wink wink) the game runs perfectly well and costs much, much less.

I put a ridiculous amount of time into this game, and found that none of it was wasted. I would highly recommend it to pretty much anyone.

Now to be disappointed by Starfield.

#the legend of zelda #tears of the kingdom #totk #video game review

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zydrateacademy · 10 months ago

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Current Activities in Gaming #227

It may be because of my new computer upgrades but Starfield runs like a dream and loading screens are literal seconds, like 1-3 seconds and I'm there. So the common complaint isn't so much a problem for me, though it is tedious to have to go through three of them to do something I want.

I quite enjoy the ship combat and wish it was a little "meatier", like more than 1-3 enemies at a time but with a tougher ship to compensate. Dogfights tend to end too soon, and if they go on too long it probably means the enemies are out-DPSing me. Just another thing a future mod might fix.

On my NG+ I'm once again working my way up to affording that big expensive Narwhal, and I discovered I could actually add more guns that the default that ships usually come with. So I had 6 autocannons I was absolutely tearing through enemies with. The Starborn Guardian is a very nice starter ship and performs well beyond the Frontier by miles, but that's really all its for. To make the first half of the game more manageable. It's a lovely ship, sleek and clean but again there's nothing else to do with it. I'm certainly glad to have it, but most of my gameplay is working towards the other ships.

That aside, I've found an interesting gameplay loop that I quite enjoy. I like earning money so I pick up the generated missions that typically involve me invading an "abandoned" facility, which usually hosts a couple dozen bandit type enemies which drop semi-leveled loot, which eventually adds up to a ton more cash. I also like to spend my time in space so eventually I also pick up a lot of missions that get me into ship combat.

The NG+ is rough though, because I've lost all my materials so I can't upgrade my spacesuit(s) with stealth capabilities and such, nor can I yet add suppressors to my weapons. Still, I'm almost treating Starfield like my run with FO4, which was incredibly sandboxy. I'm just picking a direction of my whims and having fun that way, in my NG+ I've hardly done any quests at all in a few hours. Mostly because I'm still trying to gather enough materials to "handle" said quests.

My mod wishlist? I'd love to make Starfield more like my FO4 game. Extra enemy spawns, weapon expansions, enemy overhauls, and maybe do that aforementioned dogfight expansion. Through in a couple more leveled enemy ships on some (not all) encounters. Or all of them, spice things up a bit.

In addition to that, anything that overhauls or adds onto clothing options, not just for me but the populace. After 40 hours of gameplay I'm already tired of seeing the same three shirts on every planet.

#Starfield #Bethesda #Bethesda Softworks #gaming #pc gaming

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cuprohastes · 1 year ago

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Starfield!

OK I've been playing the heck out of this and I have some thoughts. Under the cut.

TL:DR - I'm enjoying it a whole lot.

OK, this is a very Bethesda game. I mean you can see the Fallout 4 DNA, and it's distant ancestor, Skyrim.

And there's some classic bugs: Putting your super rare and cool looking space suit on the Armoury Mannekin is great. And if you change the least amount of your ship it will vanish forever.

Not all your very cool, upgraded weapons will stick around. They'll just show up missing. The tutorials on navigation or ship building appear to be 100% missing. The speech challenge is... hilariously crap and badly explained

But... but...

Out of days of play that's pretty much the only issues I've had, apart from 'Oh dear god I'm over encumbered AGAIN?!' Because for some reason, Bethesda thought that an upper limit of 150KG before buffs or perks or suit mods was acceptable. I mean... OK. It probably is, but given most of your income is hauling gently used equipment and other goodies back to your ship and flogging it off for space bottlecaps septims dollars, it can get really annoying that while carrying the equivalent of two adult humans, you can only sprint for a little bit.

Unless you get your robot butler to pick up the load, but say goodbye to stealth play because at the merest hint of Bad Guy activity, it'll sprint into the thick of things yelling about how it's not programmed for combat, DIE SQUISHY HUMAN RARG RARG PUNCH KICK TWIRL... yes dude, please back off so I can fire this proton canon into that bad person's kneecaps.

I mean you can just park it and say 'wait here'. You even get a quest and marker to find it again if you forget.

But it's a very mellow game. Yes it is super easy to make the game spawn a couple of loot dungeons. But have you tried going to Mars where the horrible grimy mine is... staffed by fairly happy and content miners who are not being exploited, and where you can pick up a mission to put up posters so that people will feel happier? OR that fetch quest designed to get you visiting other locations on behalf of the comic book fan? What about the first faction you meet who won a war but who's citizens were so horrified by it that they formed a working peace with their erstwhile opponents, and admit, yeah, the enetire thing was their fault: Let's rebuild and be better people.

They have a museum where they have a display explaining 'We won but when we asked AITA, the answer was Yes.'

And then you can go sit in the park and eat meatloaf. Maybe build your own colony and put up Space Frog, the Frog from Space posters. Start a garden. Get eaten by a Terrormorph

But you want to be a pirate, a smuggler, a Space Cop, A Ranger, a spy, a bounty hunter, a collections agent or a freelance bad-guy murderer? Oh yeah that for SURE is a bunch of things that you are basically offered right away, and that's not even the main plot. These are fun sub plots. This is a way to rack up XP and bank the hilariously small amount of money it takes to re-build your ship into the space Winnebago of your dreams.

How's that work?

OK you have a space winnebago. Cockpit at the front, mobile home in the middle, then a bunch of engines and pew-pew sticks. Porch on the belly and buncha legs to stand on.

You can swap the middle part - Bed n' kitchen, science room, workshop, infirmary, armoury, captains quarters, living quarters, a couple of other options.

Want more? Well... click a second unit on. Or a long version. Or some passages. Hell, make a star destroyer with every type of room and cover it with engines and lasers and storage units.

You just need to be able to train up to get the reactor to power it all. The good news is that you can absolutely hire staff to run all your systems and have ship with a crew, and a companion who'll happily tag along and provide banter. Or solo it all.

And so far there's no Preston Garvey.

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stuffed-starfield · 1 year ago

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Muse List

Here are the lardy ladies of the Starfield~

More will be added as I find them in game~

The Starstrider/ The Feeder: Slim weight (Player Character insert, a Starborn who travels through the multiverse providing food and affection to numerous ladies she encounters. Similar to an anon in many ways.)

Sarah Morgan: 230lbs (All over fat. Leader of Constellation, but starting to get plump due to stress eating to hide her worries. However her weight is also adding to that list of worries, causing something of a viscous cycle. Not helped by the Starborn constantly offering her snacks~ Can get quite blushy when flirted with~)

Andreja: 490lbs (Growing fatter thanks to anon intervention. Pear-shaped fatty, but still strong underneath it. Formerly a member of House Vaa'run, Andreja now assists Constellation with their search for the fabled Artifacts. She can find social interaction tricky, so be patient with her. Don't get on her bad side, she is much better with her fists and weapons than with her social skills. Quite blunt and to the point. Chocolate is her favourite snack~)

Noel: 225lbs (Soft, belly-heavy body. It's pronounced No-el. Spends most of her time in The Lodge, handling scientific conundrums and getting into debates with her peers. Snacks heavily during her working hours, it helps her to concentrate.)

Lin: 200lbs (Soft "Mom-bod". Lin is the tough-love type, who looks out for those close to her, including making sure they're eating enough and getting enough to drink. Acts like a stern mother, but would only ever admit it to those she is absolutely close to. Will likely nickname you "Dusty".)

Marika Boros: 240lbs (Pear-shaped body. A fairly cheery gal from Hopetown, hoping to get her parents out of there by earning credits while exploring the galaxy. Had history with both major Factions in the Settled Systems, she wants to set up her own settlement one day.)

Imogene Salzo: 330lbs (Belly-heavy. Middle-management for Ryujin Industries. Thanks to the help from Starstrider, her job became a lot easier, so she could afford to relax a little more. With plenty of snack deliveries and persuasion from the Starborn Feeder, she is putting on the pounds at her desk~)

#muse list

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leiflitter · 1 year ago

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10000% this- and hopefully we can change it!

I honestly feel like the multi-levelled corporate decision making process doesn't really "get" the idea of escapism- like for whoever was responsible for signing off on body types, it's this "we must balance costs vs what we think the gamers want" kinda deal but being absolutely ripped/supermodel thin is by no means a universal fantasy- but at this point it's essentially "the default" for game characters, and to make more body types you have to be able to justify the cost of everything that body type requires to be functional in the game- so they played it safe.

Larian have said their reasoning for not having sliders, which is their choice (I, for one, love me some sliders, but I can understand their logic).

Assuming minimal crossover, we have at least 14 individual body types in BG3 across the various races and sizes (this is me doing awful maths off the top of my head, so grain of salt please 😅). That's 14 different bodies that require at least some adjustment for everything those bodies interact with- heads, clothing, hair, weapons, overworld animations, cutscenes... not just for the main characters, but for near enough every NPC in the game. To add another set of bodies would increase the overall work required by a further 50%, and if they can't justify that cost, then they're shit outta luck.

And it's also important to remember that Larian are, comparatively, quite a small studio. Starfield, for example, had a budget of ~$200 mil and had about 500 people working on it.

Baldur's Gate 3 had a budget of ~$100 mil and 300 staff.

All round, it's a tighter squeeze, with so much to factor in.

However, Larian being a smaller studio also means that they're really responsive to feedback, and they're absolutely bangin' out updates and fixes. I don't anticipate them going "patch 7- we've added 2 more body types for each race!" BUT Larian have a habit of releasing Definitive Editions, and an expanded character creation menu could conceivably be included in that. The D:OS2 Definitive Edition included a MASSIVE narrative overhaul, for example- they aren't afraid of big projects. If Larian get enough people asking for it, then chances are that they'll at least consider implementing it, especially as BG3 has been an absolute hit and as such they may well have more flexibility in budget.

And getting in before the "just mod your game-" crew-

1. Telling people to rely on unpaid labours of fan-love for a game isn't sustainable.

2. Not everyone can mod their game.

3. Mods ≠ Tangible Changes in games as a whole- but a game having diverse body types and selling well is good data to hopefully mean further changes to gaming. And if you're against having more character customisation options... are you okay? Like, really, you don't... need to use them if you don't want?

I'm not sure of the best ways to get feedback on things like this to Larian, but consider-

1. Leaving a review on Steam/wherever you got the game. Make sure any suggestions are clear and concise, as review data is a bitch to go through! Maybe have it as bullet points, i.e.

Suggestions:

1. Additional body types

2. More platonic companion content.

3. Companion cutscene time to be equalised amongst all companions.

2. The Larian Studios forum may already have a thread about this/other suggestions- taking a minute to have a check and see if you can add a comment.

3. Stuff like this on social media- but again, try to have concise suggestions as well as any justification or analysis! The easier you make it for the data analysts, the better- unstructured data is an absolute pain to deal with.

If anyone else has any means of getting suggestions to Larian, have at it- I wrote this on my lunch break so my research time is limited.

as much as I love Baldur's Gate 3 it is. Baffling and infuriating that there is nobody online talking about how in a world as massive and populated as this game's there are 0 fat people in it, anywhere, at all, when we had body sliders in Fallout 3 fifteen fucking years ago

If you want Boy body type you get to be hunk and More Hunk and if you want Girl body type you get to be skinny or skinny with muscles and that's WEIRD, right? It's weird that no one's talking about that?? This is a bizarre regression from a game that advances so much and I would have happily waited another whole year of development for a body slider feature

#leiflitter reblogs #bg3 #bg3 feedback #cmon larian let's do better #can you tell I work in business planning/data analysis yet

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maximuswolf · 1 month ago

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How Bethesda can get back on track and make The Elder Scrolls VI incredible

How Bethesda can get back on track and make The Elder Scrolls VI incredible It's been a rough... decade for Bethesda's reputation. After producing hit after hit in the 360-era and achieving industry-leader status with Skyrim in 2011, they've suffered from some colossal missteps.That said, even as someone who lost a ton of faith in them after Fallout 76 and Starfield, I have absolutely zero doubt that everything will be forgiven if The Elder Scrolls 6 turns out great. Not perfect. Not flawless. Just great.Disclaimer: I recognize that giving an industry titan advice like I'm some sort of expert sounds condescending but, given just how badly Bethesda has fumbled the ball with their past two releases, maybe taking a step back and listening to the most common advice from backseat game devs would be beneficial.With that out of the way, here are five steps Bethesda can take to make TESVI a hit with their fanbase, achieve another Skyrim moment, and get back on top:1. Old-School World Design: Exploration used to be Bethesda's greatest strength, and TESVI needs to feel like a return to the heights of Morrowind and Skyrim. Take no big risks here, and instead find little inspirations from games like Elden Ring (tons of secrets, terrifying encounters) and BOTW (meaningful weather, exciting traversal), while still maintaining the overall feel that players loved from the previous TES games. No procedural nonsense or cut corners, just make a great world by hand as if it was 2003 or 2011 again.2. Modern Combat: It's tough to make first-person melee combat feel good, so bring on experts from studios like Fatshark (Vermintide), Torn Banner (Chivalry) and Triternion (Mordhau) who have made significant strides in that area since Skyrim. Weapon types should feel meaningfully different, builds should be highly diverse, and enemy variety should be more extensive than ever before.3. Expert Writing: As far as quest writing goes: If From Software is humble enough to hire an expert like George R.R. Martin to lay the groundwork for Elden Ring, then Bethesda should do the same thing with a writer of a similar caliber. 2006 & 2008 Bethesda could get Patrick Stewart and Liam Neeson to play major characters in Oblivion and Fallout 3, respectfully, so what's stopping 2025 Bethesda from hiring a top-quality writer to guide their vision and plug holes in their storytelling? Hell, if they don't want to spend the money, just bring over some folks from fellow Microsoft studio Obsidian to act as editors.4. Cut the Bloat: Next, they cut out all of the superfluous nonsense. You aren't building houses or catching ponies to raise into warhorses (complete with fully customizable horse armor!). Time isn't wasted creating procedurally-generated quests or finding new ways for AI to make worse versions of what game devs and writers from the 2000s were doing much better. Features like settlements and ship building have their fans, but Starfield made it so clear that development resources are better spent honing the core of the game than loading it up with vestigial stuff.5. Stick to the Plan: Bad ideas always creep into lengthy dev cycles, and TESVI is bound to have plenty. "Wouldn't it be interesting to try adding multiplayer to The Elder Scrolls?" or "Maybe you could grind your skills of materials in a mobile app?" or "Why don't we have a battle pass?" Recognize these ideas for the traps that they are, swiftly kill them, and then get back to making a great game.Bethesda has so much potential to make something incredible and, being under Microsoft now, should have more resources than ever to make that happen. If they succeed, it will be because they use everything at their disposal, refuse to compromise on quality, and stick to a clear vision that made Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim massive hits. If they fail, it will be because of hubris, trend-chasing and the refusal to learn from their recent mistakes.Let's hope they succeed! Submitted October 14, 2024 at 09:34AM by GameShrink https://ift.tt/Y7XO1Hd via /r/gaming

#reddit

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skullbuilt · 10 months ago

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La Vie en Rose 2024 - Game 1: Lunacid (Kira LLC, 2023)

What happens to dreams when the dreamer wakes?

also: if my immediate thing to say about something after finishing is a quote from the thing, it's because i thought it was a banger and don't know what else to say

Lunacid is a retro throwback style game (if you're familiar with Akuma Kira's other works like Lost in Vivo or Basilisk, this is not surprising). Specifically, Lunacid draws from FromSoft's back catalog, namely King's Field. It does some of my favorite stuff in the "hard games" genre space- hopefully people know what I mean here- by trying to talk very explicitly about how those struggles carry forward into the real world. Yes, at times it may have felt insurmountable, but you only really lose when you give up, and such is the same of all challenges.

It also carries a lot of the fun mystery of a PSX game with it. This is both in it storytelling and atmosphere style- little snippets of writing and names that you have to piece together into stories and clues on your own- as well as the mechanics. The game is absolutely rife with hidden doors and false walls, and most only lead to an item or two, but the occasional big secret weapon makes every crafting ingredient worth it. I did run into some issues with difficulty- one of the things Soulslike games do that reinforces the preserver-and-overcome theming is that they don't actually take much from you. Sure, you drop your EXP, but it's a quick load with any other cool loot you found and back into the action. True to a PSX game, when you die in Lunacid, it boots you back to load up your last save. Some of the sting is taken out once you discover a broken weapon, but this causes combat to lose a lot of its teeth too (with the exception of the final boss, who in my opinion, has far too much health).

But I love the world! I loved the atmosphere! I loved walking around and reading lore on a magic sword found in a moat! I loved opening a secret wall only to find a vhs tape?! I'm not a massive fan of fantasy, but Lunacid is the kind of gothic dark fantasy I absolutely adore, and it's going to stay with me for a long time.

Which is how it answers the question it poses: What happens to a dream after the dreamer wakes? The dreamer remembers the dream, and carries that memory into the waking world.

P.S. a quick aside i couldn't fit anywhere else: i love how lunacid handles pronouns. initially, the game didn't have any, since characters only every referred to you by player name. after the whole starfield debacle, with a certain type of player losing their mind over having to pick between 'he/him', 'she/her', or 'they/them' like some kind of lib, they were added to character creation. they start off as 'they/them' by default. scrolling one to the right is 'xe/xir'. scrolling one to the left is 'she/he'. both 'he/him' and 'she/her' are buried in the middle of the options, meaning you have to go through 'ey/em's and 'she/they's to get there. and after all that? npcs still only call you by name. masterfully done.

#🌹.log #la vie en rose 2024 #la vie en rose: games #feeling a little rusty on this one... i hope how much i adored this game comes across #it just feels dishonest to not mention the few issues i had with it

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trainsinanime · 1 year ago

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While I was initially very negative on Starfield, I find myself playing more and more of it recently. I'm still negative about it, but it did get me hooked (and I got better at aiming with a controller instead of keyboard and mouse). Some random notes.

First of, the Bethesda RPG has always been a game is broad but shallow. Lots of world, lots of different mechanics, lots of lore and story, but generally nothing of it is that in-depth. There's not much moral decision making; the only thing that goes into much depth is combat; you find a lot of places but you can quickly tell that they're made out of the same basic building blocks; stories are ultimately fairly straightforward and so on.

Between the past three games, each of them have found different balances between breadth and depth. I'm going to count Skyrim as the default because I didn't get far into Morrowind and never played Oblivion or Fallout 3 or New Vegas, and Skyrim has a balance that I personally like a lot.

Fallout 4 goes for less breadth, more depth. Compared to Skyrim's four major and four minor cities, F4 essentially has just two cities on a level even vaguely approaching, say, Whiterun. There are far fewer companions, but they are better written, better fleshed out and just way more fun to hang out with. Back in Skyrim the closest we had to a good companion was Serena, and looking back, that's not that much. Where Fallout 4 added a lot of stuff was base building, and I spent way too many hours there.

Starfield is mechanically way closer to "Fallout 4" in space than to "Skyrim in space", from the weapons with the millions of different types of ammunitions through the levelling system and so on. But on the shallow/deep scale, it is incredibly broad and very shallow, and it shows.

Three cities sounds better than Fallout 4, but among all the many planets, it's hardly a lot. And while these cities are bigger than what you see elsewhere, they're also still not that big, featuring sci-fi city, sci-fi Wild West city, and the least impressive cyberpunk dystopian city ever.

But my main issue is with all the other places in the world. No matter where you are on a planet, you're typically between 500 and 1000 m from something, and that something is typically a human-built thing. And 99.9% of the time, that human-built thing is boring. Some abandoned facility overrun with gangsters. Some outpost full of people all named "Colonist" or "Scientist" with exactly one auto-generated quest. You can visit these places, but there is generally no reason to.

Sometimes you think, "oh, I found a place with the trademark Bethesda environmental storytelling", but then it doesn't actually tell a story. I found a mine where some disaster happened. All the miners were dead, but apparently from different reasons. There was no audio log or similar explaining what happened, no story here. I never found what the deal with that mine was…

…until a few hours later, when I found that very same mine again. Different planet, this time the rocks were orange instead of grey, but it was the same mine, the same layout, the same NASA lab coat under the bed, and the same dead miners in the same poses died by the same fallen barrels. In retrospect that makes sense, there are way too many locations on the planets, of course they're gonna repeat (I also saw the same Helium generating station twice). But it once more tells me, "oh, right, exploring here was actually pointless".

Exception exist, but even the bespoke unique places don't tell that much of a story. The scrap operation set up around a former battle site full of destroyed giant mechs? Yeah, the story there is you talk to a guy, and that guy will sell you a map, and that's it. Some great visuals, though. Another example: I've found two abandoned luxury destinations, a zero-G casino and an island resort. Both overrun with pirates. What's the story between them? What's their secret? Well, there doesn't seem to be any, it's just a nice-looking place. We can guess at some secrets to pass the time, but that's it.

For example, the island resort is clearly meant to be a sleazy thing with lots of stripper poles throughout and discarded clothes and money around them. But the only non-pirate person was the corpse of the owner, and there don't seem to be any sleep rooms for anyone who isn't a visitor. Clear implication: Clearly the owner was doing all the stripping. The bigger mystery there is that the place has an outdoor lounge and pool area, on a planet with zero oxygen in the atmosphere. How did that work? Or will I eventually find the same exact establishment, with a different name, on a different planet?

So why am I playing anyway? Well, because of base building and Factorio. The base building here is very limited, sometimes for plausible reasons (I guess it makes sense that you can't freely build houses, only stick predefined modules together; makes it easy for the game to track what is safe indoors and what is potentially lethal outdoors) and sometimes for no good reason (give me ladders and walkways! Why can I stack storage thingies six layers high if I can't access them afterwards!?). The Factorio elements, where I find resources, then build transport links, then build constructors that automatically assemble things, that's just fun, at least for me personally (note: I am weird). It is arguably pointless, at least as far as I can tell right now, because you don't actually need the built stuff for anything. I assume "automatic manufacturing of all that goddamn ammunition" will be in an expansion pretty soon.

In conclusion: I dunno. Skyrim's way better but I am enjoying my time with this game still. All this is just thoughts that have been running through my head for the past week or so playing that game.

#starfield

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stormfang-gnash · 7 months ago

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I have 700+ hours in Skyrim across ten years, but ever since Starfield came out and was absolute ass, I've been freed from Skyrim hypnosis. Skyrim is not inherently a good game, it's just the only game of its caliber on the market. There isn't really another open world fantasy arpg with an actually rewarding exploration system and fun quests that lets you make a character and choose how you want to play the game yourself that isn't a Soulsborne/Soulslike, or at least I haven't found one yet. I realized I don't love Skyrim for what it is, because there is certainly a reason why the mere thought of a completely unmodded run makes me cringe into my soul, I love the idea of Skyrim, what it could be if it wasn't held back by so many broken or unfleshed systems. I have so many thoughts about this game, click the read more if you dare.

I could start like everyone else does, by talking about the bugs, and I think they are important to mention. Bethesda always gets off the hook for bugs when we wouldn't accept this level of bugginess from any other studio, and I think it is time we acknowledge that. And it's not like all the bugs that happen are funny mammoths falling out of the sky, there were multiple gamebreaking bugs that if you didn't have a recent manual save, you could lose hours of progress, including in the main questline itself. I distinctly remember getting the glitch where you talk to Esbern through the door in the Ratway in the main quest and he's says "ok let me open the door and we'll talk" or whatever, but the door never opened. This was long before I started modding too, so I was either straight up vanilla or vanilla plus the unofficical patch - which is crazy to me that modders need to patch the game because Bethesda won't, but I digress. The bugs are an issue, but are unintentional. I think Skyrim isn't good not just because of the bugs, but moreso because what WAS intended wasn't great, even for the time.

All three major forms of combat are bland in their own respective ways, for starters. For melee, its literally just hold the attack button with the occasional power move to break shields and very little variety in how you can approach combat. Even if you stealth in, once you enter melee combat its just swing, swing, swing, open a menu and eat a wheel of cheese, he's blocking so hit with a heavy attack, swing, swing, block, swing, swing, swing... You don't have to read movements, no riposte, no dodge or parry or anything crazy. I don't think it's a tall ask to give me a dodge and reward me for using it, give me a parry that I can use to punish an overly aggressive enemy, but I can still just hold block if I'm not able to learn how to do those techniques, but also pressure me to learn to engage with the combat system by having enemies break my block/stun me with heavies unless you parry. It could have learned a few things from beat em ups or hack-n-slashes of the time, tbqh. Not to mention every weapon in the game is the same, something I noticed after adding the Immersive Weapons mod. There's much cooler LOOKING weapons, but an axe is just a stronger and slower sword and a mace is just a stronger and slower axe, and the same is true for two handed weapons. There's no variance to playstyle, something that had been true in other titles of its day. Monster Hunter comes to mind, with unique movesets for all of its weapons so no two feel the same. They didn't have to go hard in the paint, but make my choice meaningful. And because the damage bumps are fixed to whether or not you choose sword, axe, or mace, they can't really get too creative with anything else, which dumbs it down into the realm of boringness. There's no room for reach weapons like polearms, fun but impractical fantasy weapons like scythes or buster swords, chained weapons like flails, thrown daggers or kunai, finesse swords like katanas or rapiers, different damage types and resistances, nothing. Combat feels the same for you no matter what weapon you pick up and I think that's one of the worst choices they made. It makes it so it's super easy to pick up as a new gamer, but once you've been playing for long enough, there's nothing to delve deeper into to keep you interested in it.

Spells are worse though, because the damage doesn't scale with your level literally at all. There's very little difference between a level 100 destruction mage casting flames and a level 15 destruction mage doing it. The only damage amp spell casters get is a paltry non-scaling 25% to one particular element (meaning if you want to use all 3 kinds of damage spells (excluding radiant since its not a primary type, another piece of squandered potential) you have to spend 3 skill points to get max damage on each), one other small bump if you dual cast, but that shuts out other playstyles, like spellswording or even just having ice spike in one hand and lightning bolt in the other. So the only way to keep scaling your damage to enemies is to sink all your stat points into magicka so you can cast highier tier spells that will actually hurt high level enemies like draugr deathlords. You can't even augment your damage via enchanting, all it does is reduce mana cost so you can cast more. And you'll need to cast more, cause the aiming is ass. You know how DnD/BG3 has point and click spells like Magic Missle or Scorching Ray? None of that. Everything is an actual projectile, and the projectile is SLOW. I have no issue hitting moving targets with arrows, but with a spell? Forget it. And iirc unless you have a mod to turn off friendly fire, stuff like chain lightning WILL hit your followers/nonhostiles, which is fine in DnD to make you weigh the cost of using a high impact spell at the cost of allied HP vs switching to something with less or no AOE and less damage, but annoying in Skyrim when Fireball and Chain Lightning are the only spells at that level and the enemy is a deathlord.

Even the stealth archer that is the best way to play isn't as engaging as it could be, because there's no incentive to be GOOD at stealth. There's no red alert phase enemies go into if evidence of your presence is found, they just see a dead comrade, look for you for a minute and a half, then go "🤷‍♀️ must've run off" and that's it! And the AI is so bad if you have a few levels in sneak they can be looking right at you and STILL not see you. The gameplay as a sneak archer is similar to the melee in that its just get a pick, pick, oops they saw me so I'll hide now, pick, pick, pick, run and hide, pick, pick, miniboss so kite around it/switch to melee and the dungeon is clear. I noticed as I was writing this that I have never had a save where I was a straight up melee or magic combat user and actually continued playing it. Every character I have that I played to level 30 besides the wizard where I was hoping it would get fun eventually (it didn't) is some sort of hybrid spellsword or paladin because doing just one or the other highkey... is Boring! But I'm not sure if it's worse than having to stop combat to open a menu and switch spells. Even with SkyUI, this shit is gross and clunky to use, and it makes combat come to a screeching halt.

Crime is another thing I feel is... eh? It doesn't really feel like people's opinion of you changes based on your actions like they do in Morrowind or even Oblivion. In fact, the entire Speech tree is completely useless beyond lowering shop prices and fencing items, because you can almost never use it to fish out information from people, manipulate people, piss people off, or get a read on someone's opinion of you because that information is literally irrelevant. Everyone's disposition towards you is just "you're the main character so I guess I'll just dump 5 sentences of exposition on you without any hesitation". If I attack Nazeem in broad daylight and serve my sentence or pay my fine, the guards may comment, but nothing of value is lost. No one seems to dislike the player for their actions, or refuse them service or anything. You might lock yourself out of a quest or follower, but it never felt like anyone had much to say if I did commit crimes, unless it's LITTERING, because THEN people will come up to you and either tell you to knock it off or ask to take what you dropped. Even when you're obviously trashing a room, they just ask you to stop, they don't get aggressive. It's not like even RDR2 where the townsfolk will loathe you after you've done a crime, but bringing your honor back up clears the hatred townsfolk hold towards you. People aren't distrustful of you if you're a werewolf or vampire unless you're caught doing explicitly non-human things even if you're in the monster hunter guild, if you are a non-Nord dragonborn, you experience no racism, like there's just... so much that could've been done here. Speech is the most underwhelming skill because it's never utilized beyond things relating to gold - intimidation or persuasion are such rare dialogue choices, why even bother? It's rare that you can actually defuse a situation with words anyway, and it's telling that the only way to really be able to raise speech is to buy and sell over and over rather than just talking to people and trying to glean information from them, being able to defuse arguments, or pick fights.

The characters lack depth I didn't know was possible until Baldur's. I can talk to a lot of major NPCs and companions and get the jist of their life story in BG3, but what can I say about Lydia, or the wood elf you can pick up in Riverwood who is so forgettable I can't even remember his name? Major players in the story like Ulfric or Jarl Balgruf? Even my beloved Kharjo, what do I actually know about him? He's in Skyrim because he blew all his money on gambling while wasted on Skooma, and he has his mom's amulet. That's it. There is ONE fleshed out follower and its Serana. And she ironically is the ONLY NPC you could really and truly get attached to, the only one with a shred of personality, and she rejects your marriage proposal. You can't make this shit up. I get its partly because they have so many companions, but I'd rather have just one masc and femme follower of each race that have fully finished character sheets with ideals and motivations than 50 stubs with non-existant personalities (and this way at least the "uglier" races have more options bc there's so few Khajiit, Argonian, and Orc romances you could count them on 2 hands). And genuinely, this is the central issue with what's wrong with I think most of their titles after Skyrim. They focus too much on having more, more, more, that what they do have winds up uninteresting because it wasn't developed enough. Wide as an ocean with so much you COULD potentially do and how much it offers, deep as a puddle with how much everything is lacking because of a lack of focus on the smaller details. You don't earn your romance, you just wear an amulet and talk to the npc you want to marry. You barely interact with any adopted kids other than "yes bring that skeever home" "no go to bed" "ok ill play tag with you". Even one of the tasks I do every game almost, building the homestead, what is really the difference between buying and furnishing a house in a major hold versus the homestead, other than it being time consuming and slightly modular? Unless you grow plants, prebuilt homes offer the same amenities except the forge/smelter iirc, and your spouse will occasionally hand you gold from stuff they've "sold" despite you never stocking the store. There's such a missed opportunity to actually RUN a store that you have to keep stocked, giving you a decent way to earn passive income with all the trinkets, armor, and weapons you loot. Your spouse and kids should make occasional trips to town for fun and supplies, and you could easily have small optional quests to do for them, almost like a Haruka's Requests system. You don't have to do everything she asks (I sure don't when it's Koi-Koi), but it raises your bond if you do.

The one thing I can say with confidence the game got right is exploration. You can pick up a quest in Whiterun to go kill someone near Riften, and while you're making the trip, you run past 20 different dungeons you could stop in and get new loot, you might find more sidequests along the way, kill a dragon, run into a radiant encounter, pick new herbs for poisons, fill soul gems for enchanting later, etc, etc. It's a positive loop that keeps you locked in like "ok I'll just do this one last small thing" but that thing is so connected to everything else that it builds on itself to keep you invested. It's a truly brilliant way of handling exploration, and I see it echoed in BotW and TotK and I'm glad for it, it is truly the best thing to come out of the game. Truly a journey-not-destination kind of thing, and because of that I don't fast travel nearly as much as I walk places. But everything else.... sucks.

And I really do hate that it sucks, I'm not a hater just because, as evidenced by my playtime, once upon a time Skyrim was my favorite game, and stayed in my top 5 for years. I want to keep enjoying it, but partially because I've been milking dopamine out of it for 10 years, and partly because I can see behind the veneer, it doesn't hit the same anymore. And the central issue I have with coming back to Skyrim now is the same issue I have with Starfield - I've seen every system and idea that's lacking done so much better by other titles. No Man's Sky did everything Starfield wanted to do with space travel MILES better than Starfield and I don't even play NMS anymore, and it was 8 years old when Starfield launched. And because I'm not a broke 15 year old with a shitty laptop anymore and I can actually play all kinds of newer titles and emulate older ones, I've seen everything that Skyrim tries to do done better by so many other games that it's impossible to go back, even by its contemporaries in 2011. I try not to judge the lack of meaningful stealth mechanics too harshly, but Splinter Cell and MGS3 had already set the bar on that many years prior; I try not to judge the NPCs/companions, but Mass Effect is often praised for it's cast of colorful characters and the ways you can romance them too, and it predates Skyrim by a few years; melee combat had been so iterated upon by this point that they could have pulled out any popular non-FPS title and chosen that to look at, or even referred back to the original DnD blueprint; and I've ALWAYS hated that vanilla had no way of either being able to keep track of or summon your horse when Red Dead Redmption came out a year prior and had an icon to to show the horse on your map, and Ocarina of Time, a game that was then as old as Skyrim is now, gave you a method to summon the fucking horse on command. And it is hard to not look at newer titles like Red Dead Redemption 2, or Baldur's Gate 3, both of which are absolute masterclasses on open worlds with strong narratives and compelling NPCs and companions even despite some of their flaws, and NOT judge Skyrim now that I've seen what COULD have been with more care and attention to detail, and probably an engine that isn't Creation. Especially now after Starfield and even FO76 where I can clearly see that Skyrim wasn't overly ambitious and just couldn't achieve all it wanted to do before it had to be shipped (though it plays a part, I'm sure), but everything is the way it is by design.

now its time to bring the haterism

if you think multiple are bad vote for the one you hate the most <3

#sorry for the essay ive just really really been thinking about how much i hate that i had to break up with skyrim a lot recently #i dont have as strong of an opinion about anything else here except final fantasy but only bc thats ewwww mmo #fnv is the only good modern fallout we'll ever get so i cant shit on it. never played ass effect. portal 2 is a classic #disco elysium got fucked by zaum and it sucks bc its such a good game i cant wait to finish and i have no beef with sdv its just not for me #never played dao either but i didnt mych care for dai so i prob wouldnt like it.#it doesnt surprise me that skyrim leads here. dgmw it IS immersive and lends itself to roleplay but the roles you CAN play are limited #and the way you play is so surface level its boring. i just need another studio to form and make skyrim 2: The Good One and ill be cooked.#even if that someone is my by god it must be done.#i have heard kingdoms of amalur and kingome come deliverance are good open world arpgs with good combat so if youre in my boat try those

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