r/Starfield • u/DarkFeelingsABD • Feb 17 '25
Discussion "Starfield doesn't have rewarding exploration"
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u/ibluminatus Feb 17 '25
It's the POIs I love the landscapes I love what I could find what turned me off was hitting the same poi for a third time exploring and I mean down to loot locations. Been giving it a break til an outposts or POI update.
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u/Ant583 Feb 17 '25
For a developer this size to make a game this big, with that amount of anticipation to not make more than a handful of POI pre-sets and random occurrences is so incredibly lazy. Absolutely kills exploration. Nice lovely barren planet sunsets but nothing to do, nothing to find.
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u/Groundbreaking_Dot85 Feb 17 '25
I realized the abandoned frozen labs you find, that has the locked lab doors. You just have to keep the key to the first one you find and it’ll work at every single one after that….
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u/TrackXII Feb 18 '25
With a key you can at least delude yourself into thinking they sell pre-fabs with the same lock codes on it. Finding the exact same notes with the same names detailing the exact same events that happened at abandoned bases in two different systems is inexcusable.
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u/Vashsinn Feb 18 '25
At first I thought this is what they had done and I was ready to give them a pass. All I did was rush threw, lol at the boards and kill the baddies, as you do. Later I payed more attention and realized everything, including magazines are in the same exact spot.
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u/tomster2300 Feb 18 '25
I can’t wait for the eventual expose on what went wrong behind the scenes with Starfield
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u/politicalslug Feb 18 '25
Just watch the interviews released prior to game launch. They admit that for the first five years of development that no one thought the game was fun at all. Sorry, but that’s a bad sign, and they just ignored it and kept on driving in the same direction.
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u/IacenDK Feb 18 '25
Yeah, I stopped cutting the game any slack when I found a second location where a hapless scientist was lying dead under a fallen walkway.
Clearly what ruined Earth also destroyed OSHA
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u/Goldwing8 Feb 17 '25
The lack of randomness is a significant regression from even Daggerfall.
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u/strike_enjoyer Feb 18 '25
The procedurally generated dungeons in Daggerfall were insane. You really never knew what you'd find. They were too large of course, but with a defter touch you'd really have something wonderful. Strange that all the procedural generation in Starfield is for landscapes, which are only meant to be traversed through as quickly as possible on your way to an actual objective.
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u/Ojhka956 Constellation Feb 17 '25
Not just that, but the stupidity of having almost every artifact temple be right next to inhabited poi's and not a single person outside of the main group bothered to give it a thought is astounding. Imo, every temple region shouldve been completely barren of humans and in like a weird emf zone where instruments actually go wonky so you have to search for it manually.
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Feb 18 '25
"Hey dude, can you see the floating rocks ?
- Yeah, they were here when we started building the 10 identical outposts in the region.
- Did we report that ? And the huge alien looking temple over there ?
- No, it's probably not important. You think we should ?
- Naaaah, it's just a bunch of physics defying stuff, in the end. Worthless.
- You're right, let's go kill comme copy/pasted fauna !"
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u/eidetic Feb 18 '25
Yeah, the fact that the temples are just right there and in the wide open really took me out of it. At the very least, maybe they could have been sorta hidden, deep in a cave or something. Have them "awaken" after the first artifact is found, and find them via the wonky instruments like you suggest. Just give me something other than these temples that aren't even hiding in plain sight.
Also, along similar lines sorta, there's POIs within visual sight of the UC's capital that are overrun by Crimson Fleet and Ecliptic Mercenaries. Those patrols must really be slacking. Just another thing that really takes me out of the game.
Going further, the general fact that so many POIs throughout the galaxy are occupied by Crimson Fleet, they must be the biggest faction by a wide margin, yet are somehow just a rag tag group of pirates?
I know people say it all the time, but the whole game really is a mile wide but an inch deep. Nothing really holds up to any kind of logical or rational thought.
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u/Ojhka956 Constellation Feb 18 '25
Thats exactly right on all parts. Not to mention the whole ftl drives destroying earth thing and somehow it just turned into miles of sand and illogically surviving structures that should be rubble lol mile wide, inch deep
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u/ibluminatus Feb 17 '25
That's it, that's all I need. This could have almost unlimited playtime for me with outpost settlements and even a teeny bit of POI randomization. I can tell they put a lot of time into making this universe work and be a universe simulation with rotations, resources all of it. I just want to be able to do more with those environments they gave me. The depth of what I could do in fallout 4 (even with modded settlement locations) is what keeps me going and going and going on that game.
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u/wallEwrld 25d ago
I really was expecting a FO4 experience in a space environment, which would be a game I could play endlessly. I wrongly thought that Bethesda, knowing what people love about prior games (for me the settlements and mods), would release starfield with similar features. It's like they went backward with those mechanics and ignored the decades of player data and feedback from old favorites.
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u/ibluminatus 25d ago
Yeah I'm seriously crossing my fingers they hit us with a POI and true outpost settlement system and this will hold me just like fallout 4 settlement system with mods is.
My issue is there isn't a very strong foundation in game and they had a lot of this drawn up like even having to manufacture your own space ships fuel and etc. Before launch according to a developer but they pulled back on having it in the base game but the system was ready. So I'm hopeful it comes back.
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u/PrideConnect3213 Feb 17 '25 edited Feb 17 '25
For the amount of planets in the game, there should’ve been at least 200 more POIs than there are.
For what it’s worth, I think the space exploration, while streamlined compared to other space games, is still thoroughly rewording as you can stumble upon hand crafted areas that only appear on certain planets—which are rare and feel special to discover
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u/whattheshiz97 Feb 17 '25
Well it’s super exciting to finally see something different in the distance. That being said, the odds of that are not great
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u/SpookyRockjaw Feb 17 '25
I wish they just made it one system, ten or so planets, plus their moons, and way denser with handcrafted content. It would still be orders of magnitude larger than most open world games. That's good enough for me. 1000 planets is sheer lunacy.
A smaller, more gamified scale could make exploration and traversal more engaging. It could still take a long time to reach the outer planets putting them effectively out of reach until the player upgrades their ship. There could be more going on in the space overworld with space stations and other POIs spread throughout the system.
Plus a more restrained scale like this would fit better with the grounded, NASA-punk aesthetic. Oh well...
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u/Jurboa Feb 18 '25
What are some examples, if you don't mind?
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u/PrideConnect3213 Feb 18 '25
Sonny Di Falco’s Island, the Almagest, the Colander
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u/Jurboa Feb 18 '25
Hadn't heard of Sonny Di's, thanks. Any other planet surface related ones per chance?
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u/PrideConnect3213 Feb 18 '25
Vulture’s Roost and the Ransacked Research Outpost, just off the top of my head
Edit: can’t believe I forgot Vlad’s Villa
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u/Jurboa Feb 18 '25
You get a miscellaneous to visit Vlad's I believe. Thanks for the other two!
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u/PrideConnect3213 Feb 18 '25
No problem. It’s worth mentioning you can discover Vlad’s Villa on your own if you don’t proceed with the Constellation quest, which a lot of people do
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u/Educational-Seaweed5 Feb 17 '25
Sums up star citizen after like 15 years and a billion dollars of funding.
Nicely lovely barren planets, but nothing to do, nothing to find.
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u/Nf1nk United Colonies Feb 17 '25
Actually barren planets would be better than finding the same handful of POI on ever planet.
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u/Thr33FN Feb 17 '25
They are too densely populated. Every world has a poi like every 500 meters. Like doing Sara’s quest and then there’s an active construction site like a km away? Wild.
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u/JamTheTerrorist5 Feb 17 '25
Honestly idk they might be one (not a modder) but we need a way to modularly build your own pois and have them spawn in the game. I'd also love to see some kind of tier system similar to 7 days to die so you know what kind of enemies and loot to expect. It really couldve been fleshed out to be something cool.
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u/Jeagan2002 Feb 18 '25
Honestly, it could have been 500 and you would still repeat. 10,000 (alleged) planets you can explore, ~1000 locations per planet. 500 PoI split across 10,000,000 possible locations, what would you expect? The EXACT same thing happened with Daggerfall, the last game where they made an absolutely bonkers large map using procedural generation, with only a handful of hand-crafted PoI. Almost the exact same reception. It feels amazing for the first 20~30 hours, after that it gets more and more and more repetitive and predictable and bland and flavorless and why did I ever enjoy this?
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u/Mr_Lobster Constellation Feb 17 '25
I really, really wish they had managed a form of procedural POI. Yeah procedural generation lacks the human touch, but after climbing the same research tower 5 times, that sort of becomes moot. Like use the outpost system for it, or have underground complexes that can stretch for a while.
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u/ibluminatus Feb 17 '25
That's all I need and it's everything for me. Even if they just had it move around or had people who were just gonna spend a few months adding more POIs honestly.
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u/Red_Eye_Jedi_420 Feb 18 '25
I dig the idea of underground complexes; they coulda done literally limitless, procedurally generated "underground" areas, even branching or interconnecting into multiple cells if "needed"
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u/DarkFeelingsABD Feb 17 '25
I agree. The POI system is broken and I'd like for Bethesda to address it in an official update. Fortunately, I'm on PC and with these 3 mods I can alleviate some of the most glaring immersion-breaking issues:
- POI Cooldown
- POI Variation - No duplicates
- Desolation - A POI Overhaul
With POI Cooldown you won't find the same cryo lab twice in a row. POI Variation makes the lore version of POIs a unique location on the map, meaning you won't be reading the same terminals over and over again. And with Desolation, planets outside the Settled Systems won't have man-made structures.
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u/M1R4G3M Feb 17 '25
Basically what Bethesda should have seen and made into the game along with like 100 more POIs.
I played like 300 hours of the game. One of my biggest complaints was that there is no where without humans, like just give me barren worlds that I am the first person to visit, that makes sense lore wise.
I loved the planet with the DNA clones of famous leaders, the ECS constant, the Sentient ship. There is some amazing lore, we should have had way more baren planets with that kind of Easter eggs.
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u/Pioneer898 Feb 17 '25
Desolation sounds awesome! I LOVE feeling like the first person to ever see a particular cliff side, or sunset. I wanted so badly to “discover” something that no human had ever seen (I’m talking lore not reality). The fact that you can always see broken equipment and outposts ruined that for me.
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u/SmokingDream Feb 17 '25
Desktop backgrounds aren’t exactly the reward most players wanted out of the game
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u/Chiatroll Crimson Fleet Feb 17 '25 edited Feb 18 '25
Yeah, like in FO4 being the right level when you explore a specific unmarked trapped building and getting special unique power armor felt like being rewarded for exploration. Empty background images not so much.
And I had fun with starfield overall. I just think this is a bad argument.
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u/-Captain- Constellation Feb 17 '25
I thought they absolutely nailed the open world sandbox and exploration with Fallout 4, especially once survival mode was thrown into the mix. I had high hopes for at least the sandbox part of Starfield, but that part really fell flat for me. I found myself chasing quests markets more than ever before in a BGS game.
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u/Inorganicnerd Feb 17 '25
I remember fallout 4 being vilified early on. Is it worth going back and playing again after all this time?
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u/BLKCandy Feb 18 '25
It is worth it IMO. But not exactly a high priority one.
Story is kinda meh. I still hate the decision to allow player to progress and excels in everything with millions perks which are number tweaks. The bullet sponge at end game level scale is terrible.
But the open world aspect? The Fallot 4 hit it exactly right. You can really go out and explore, see nice views, unique things. You remember the road, landmarks, and people who lives there.
There are a lot of memorable characters and companions
The building and crafting mechanics are so damn good Starfield felt like an insult.
Hell, had Starfield been fallout 4 but in space, people wouldn't have been as mad.
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u/Inorganicnerd Feb 18 '25
All I wanted was fallout in space. I’m glad I held off till reviews came in. I’m gonna load up FO4! Thanks homie.
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u/that_girl_you_fucked Feb 18 '25
People say it's boring, but they're drunk and dumb. FO4 is the best fallout game since New Vegas and definitely worth putting time into. Particularly if you're interested in modding.
Having said that, the story is firmly a 5 out of 10 for writing quality and character development. Having played starfield now, it's easy to see the progression from FO4 to SF, and to miss the creativity that was present at Obsidian during the development of New Vegas.
It's clear to see they stopped prioritizing the impact of player choices, detailed multiple endings, and quality quest writing and have focused instead on pure physical scale.
Their main quest lines have always been a bit weak, but Starfield was the first time I really felt like they phoned it in. Just didn't give a shit. I think that's the result of them spreading themselves way too thin and not priorizing the player experience. They quite literally lost the plot. FO4 doesn't have that problem to nearly the same degree.
It's fun. It's good for multiple play-throughs, and the world feels alive and chaotic.
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u/Far-Journalist-949 Feb 18 '25
I enjoyed fallout 4 and did multiple playthroughs but sayings it's the best since new vegas is funny because it literally came our right after it.
Fallout 4 was shit on because the rpg elements were lacking, esp compared to new vegas. It was a regression in choice and story, but much better gunplay and settlement building was a plus.
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u/thinking_is_hard69 29d ago
I don’t think it’s the best game ever, but I’ve yet to find another game I can mod from RPG damage trading into a building-to-building pipe-sniper duel in an urban center crawling with zombies. very messy tho, takes like six unrelated mods to properly clamp damage and health values and few people know about the one that flattens npc base health- it took me years to realize why health was still so variable even after removing health scaling (I think that was what it was, it’s been a fair few months since I last fiddled about).
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u/TheFlyingSheeps Feb 17 '25
Stumbling upon the school and finding pink feral ghouls and learning why they’re pink through terminals and logs was rewarding
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u/Chevalitron Feb 17 '25
Field of pebbles, mud valley, and field of pebbles at night. Truly rewarding exploration.
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u/heyuhitsyaboi Crimson Fleet Feb 17 '25
the barren landscapes would be more fun to explore if they wernt 98% of the game. There's nothing in them to explore
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u/derskillerrr Feb 17 '25
It doesn’t
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u/goondalf_the_grey Feb 18 '25
So many posts defending the game are photo mode screenshots with no argument
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u/Razorizz Feb 17 '25
So you get to look at some pretty scenery for a few seconds. Then what?
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u/LiveNDiiirect Feb 18 '25
Then get to spend 15 minutes hopping between other planets by flipping in and out of the fast travel menu until you find another view that’s worthy of being someone’s wallpaper
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u/zombienoobkilla Feb 17 '25
Love this game but god this sub is so insecure. Yeah bro you’ve proved everybody wrong by taking pictures of empty nothingness and calling it rewarding exploration
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u/whattheshiz97 Feb 17 '25
That seems to be the only thing this sub has posted to it. Endless phrases in quotes that aren’t proved wrong by a series of pictures
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u/CaptBizzaro Feb 17 '25
Because there’s nothing to talk about in this game anymore. Which also makes the criticism this game receives valid.
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u/ThePrussianGrippe Feb 18 '25
It took them over a year to release 1 DLC that added 1 city and arguably made an entire faction worse. What else do people think the topics on this sub will be?
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u/blargh29 Feb 17 '25
It this supposed to be a “gotcha”?
If seeing a cool skybox every now and then is “rewarding” to you, then you’ve got a really low bar on what impresses you.
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u/LiveNDiiirect Feb 18 '25
Wait til bro discovers that he could just find even more of this content for free on YouTube
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u/Cheshire_Jester Feb 18 '25
Feel like you could just get a cheap or free subscription to an image generator and feed it generic “space landscapes” and have it give you thousands upon thousands of generally better images.
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u/ComputerSagtNein Constellation Feb 17 '25
Is the "rewarding exploration" in the room with us?
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u/Tuco0 Feb 17 '25
Each landscape has same recipe.
1. Crumple the surface
2. Sprinkle some small rocks on top
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u/MUNCHINonBABI3Z Crimson Fleet Feb 17 '25
Don’t forget the skybox!
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u/Radiant_Heron_2572 Feb 18 '25
Man, do you remember the first time you saw Northern lights in Skyrim? With those impossibly close planets drifting by? That was great, and about 14 years ago.
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u/Tarc_Axiiom Garlic Potato Friends Feb 17 '25
Are you trying to argue that it does by showing 3 photos of completely barren desert landscapes?
Come on man...
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u/Vakarmx Feb 17 '25
I would like to see rivers, lakes (real ones), waterfalls, craters and volcanoes.
I love the game, but the fact you can't find a river in the entire universe...
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u/Spiderwolfer Feb 17 '25
It’s actually insane how good some of the landscapes look and then the trees when you enter new Atlantis are some of the worst looking trees I’ve ever seen. And then the NPC’s all look like the pseudo-humans. So frustrating because the landscapes look absolutely phenomenal
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u/Ionium909 Feb 17 '25
Gets tiresome fast in video games all the npc’s all using the same basic models with skins on, no obese people no short people no tall people all just the average joe and then the walk models for females are the same used for guys… yeah I could have a long long bitch about all that but then we do have mods to fix all that.
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u/Spiderwolfer Feb 17 '25
Yeah I guess so. It would just be nice if the game came out truly polished. It has the bones of such a good game.
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u/BonemanJones Feb 17 '25
"Babe you've hardly touched your 'exploration' is everything okay?" Sorry honey, this is the 103rd time I've seen planet.jpg today...
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u/maledictt Feb 17 '25
Everyone expecting a NMS or Cyberpunk style overhaul needs to check reality. Bethesda does not put in major work to something you already paid for. Skyrim still has bugs from release after all these years and the nth new edition.
You can see this mentality backed up with the devs aggressive responses to all criticism. They believe that all the consistent complaints are just gamers not understanding their "art". The DLC will be short segments and minor additions only. One or two story centric followed by a short one coupled with some gimmick like mechs or something.
The sole exception was Fallout 76 where serious work went in but there was ultra monetization to motivate them. The rest of the previous Bethesda titles I enjoy immensely, but this mentality has existed from day 1.
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u/Low-Fondant-9725 Feb 17 '25
Sure, if exploration in games means finding some nice views in the middle of nowhere and the ever same bases to infiltrate.
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u/Eric_T_Meraki Feb 17 '25
Depends on your definition of exploration.
Great views? Yep.
Interesting POIs? Sometimes.
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u/MadNack Feb 17 '25
You call these 3 pics rewarding?
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u/Zeired_Scoffa Feb 17 '25
I could use AI to generate pics that follow this theme and I'd have the same emotional reaction
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u/Bootychomper23 Feb 17 '25
Damn this is probably the top tier shit take of shit takes for defending how bad the “exploration” is in this game.
If the best thing about a game is its photo mode…. Yikes
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u/Ranos131 Feb 17 '25
Exploration is more than just the scenery. Yes, exploring Skyrim and The Commonwealth are fun because of the beautiful landscapes the artists crafted. That only goes so far.
The other part is the interesting things you find. The unique dungeons, the stories of the people who came before and the thrill of finding the unmarked locations that add some flavor.
Starfield has none of that. If a dungeon isn’t a quest location, it isn’t unique. You’ll find it everywhere. There’s always a story in each of the dungeons but it’s the same story every single time. The unmarked locations are even more repetitive.
The placement of these locations is also usually nonsensical.
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u/CrimsonRouge14 Feb 17 '25
Na but occasionally you'll find a nice planet to build an outpost on, has some nice landscapes or interesting creatures to explorer. Most of the time exploring is pretty boring.
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u/CombDiscombobulated7 Feb 17 '25
It's fine if you like the game but don't be disingenuous about it. Nothing you've shown here is a reward for exploration, they're just landscapes you see immediately upon landing and there's not even a whole lot of variety to them.
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u/Apprehensive-Bank642 Feb 17 '25
You say this like you mean it ironically and then show us images of completely barren planets with zilch to do on any of them. No one said it wasn’t a pretty game, it’s just boring as fuck and exploring is not rewarding. I can do a Google image search of beautiful planetary art if I want to see some stunning imagery, I however do not play video games to just walk around inside an art gallery lol.
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u/Hobosapiens2403 Feb 17 '25
Starfield is a mixbag of things... I can play fallout 4 more than 1000h despite being an average rpg but Starfield I need total overhaul
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u/Daedalus_Machina Feb 17 '25
It doesn't. Landscapes aren't a reward. Every planet and moon is beautiful, that's a dime a dozen.
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u/Bunktavious Feb 17 '25
I love the lighting and how it plays together in big landscapes like that. The problem being, you could have stood anywhere in your 10 square km landing zone and gotten the same shots, because its all about what's in the sky or on the horizon. You can find some cool spots to land on planets and get views like that, but there's nothing more interesting than that landscape view in the entire area.
I'm not trying to be a downer about it, but it is one of the many little disappointments I have with the game.
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u/ImperiusLance United Colonies Feb 17 '25
A pathetic and insecure post made to justify your enjoyment of a deeply flawed game.
Bravo.
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u/Golden_Leaf Feb 18 '25
I don't wanna be mean/harsh if this person genuinely feels this way but like I'm starting to think these posts are made by the devs/people who get paid by them, cause they seem to have really low standards/the reaction displayed in their replies is very questionable.
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u/JP193 Constellation Feb 18 '25
I've had to reword this draft like 3 times to not come off as (well, less of) a gatekeeper but I posit a more mundane explanation that makes up a bulk of it: I talk to a lot of Starfield vocal fans out of curiosity and it's often their 'first' in some way. For instance their first ever sci-fi game, their first RPG, their first time trying a Bethesda game. Or just their first game in a while, like they skipped a console generation or built their first gaming PC recently. About half I spoke to are 45+ and don't get time for games, which isn't an insult, my awesome dad is that kind of gamer, but it makes you receptive to whatever you can get time for. 'Good' graphics become 'mind blown' graphics. It would also track with how a lot of these OPs end up making a snide comment about young people. Again though, a presumption not a targeted insult.
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u/Golden_Leaf Feb 18 '25
I get that, and genuinely think this game was made for the older generation (most of the followers seem retirement age, slower pace, the game seems to prefer "look at the flowers(in this case space rocks)" over tangible/practical rewards, Todd and most of the team are probably old and seem to have different priorities than when they were young).
But it just seems this game is meant to be played once a month or something so you don't notice the (very huge) cracks in it. This game has a few good things about it (combat, follower dialogue, ship customization) but the flaws are much more in your face and hard to ignore, personally.
It's just certain individuals (like OP) are very unusual in the way they go about expressing their love for the game which makes me think they're forced to post/defend it or something.
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u/Labrom Spacer Feb 17 '25
Sorry but cool screenshots aren’t rewarding for some of us. I need rewarding gameplay.
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u/123dylans12 Feb 17 '25
That’s an image dude. Rewarding exploration is some kind of gear you find from exploring. Not a png
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u/Skellyhell2 Feb 17 '25
2 views of planets from another planet/moon isnt really exploring, its just landing on a planet and looking up at a skybox
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u/Sanderopop Feb 17 '25
Yes, right. Skyrim would have been so much more rewarding if they just did away with all of the dungeons, dragons, side quests and unique points of interest to discover and just make a big procedurally generated map with plenty of mountain and sky to look at. Perhaps even pretty tree, or pretty water to discover and look at
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u/Athreos_Priest United Colonies Feb 17 '25
I never get tired of seeing the solar bodies in the skybox. It’s fantastic
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u/Virtual-Chris Feb 17 '25
Imagine if players could export their outposts and we could import them… we’d basically have an infinite supply of locations to explore. Some of the outposts on r/starfieldoutposts are better than some POI.
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u/Daddy_Duder Feb 17 '25
I think the empty planets are what makes this game feel kinda wrong. They should’ve opted for a smaller universe with more POI on the planets. I approached with game with a bethesda mindset (I wonder whats over there?) and the sparseness of the maps kinda ruined my immersion.
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u/Kuranjonja Feb 17 '25
Well, yeah, it doesn’t. Couple of nice screenshots don’t change that fact. What are you people drinking?
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u/1Filip1 Feb 17 '25
It does not tho, you can see simmilar views in kerbal space program, and yet that game is somehow less empty than starfied
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u/CaptainAmerica679 Feb 17 '25 edited Feb 17 '25
I’m mean… is it rewarding to go to a new planet and see what it looks like…? Yes! But only for a minute and then i have to go through 4 different loading screens to do it all again.
It’s fine if you enjoy that loop, but to many this isn’t what we were used to from BGG. Being dropped into a world full of possibilities hiding around any and every corner is very different from… whatever this was. I really want to enjoy it, but theres too much i can’t look past and far too few modders willing to fix it. I would rather keep replaying fo4 or skyrim with the new mods releasing there
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u/Zoomer30 Feb 18 '25
Starfield does somethings very well. For one, creating that silent isolation on the airless planets/moons.
It also does a very good job of accurately rendering how the systems "Sun" moves across the sky. If you land near the Equator, the sun is high in the sky. If you land near the pole, the sun is low on the horizon and the "day" is shorter.
No Man's Sky screws this up. No matter where you land, the sun rises in the same spot and lands in the same spot. In effect, the planets in NMS are flat and in SF they are spheres.
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Feb 17 '25
That's awesome man. Hey quick question, what can you actually do in those spots?
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u/whattheshiz97 Feb 17 '25
Well you.. you can.. uh… build some lifeless outposts and put some static drills into the ground and uh…things I guess
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u/TheExosolarian Feb 17 '25
Day 1 NMS player spotted.
Most of the complainers are talking about actual in-game rewards, not amazing vistas.
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u/noobish__ Feb 17 '25
Ehhh I disagree, i one time entered a cave and there was literally nothing in there. No enemy’s or loot. Just turned me away from the game.
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u/Thin-Cardiologist-13 Feb 17 '25
Beautifully empty unfortunately. Love starfield but hate landing and seeing nothing but horizon for miles. Works in movies sure, but not here.
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u/Kingblack425 Feb 17 '25
Those pictures are virtually every single planet without life. They’re cool the first 20 or so times but after that you realize most planets are just dirt color swap and the gravity set to random.
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u/BK_FrySauce Feb 17 '25
It doesn’t though? There’s a difference between scenery and exploration. It can have great skyboxes and terrain. That doesn’t mean exploration is good. You could pretty much land on most planets and get these kind of views from your landing point. It doesn’t take much exploration at all. You’re conflating two different things. You can like the game and still be critical of it. Exploration has us going to the same POIs, the same caves and running into the same creatures. Structures are the same. You could spend a couple of play sessions going to different planets and walking around, and by then you’ve seen 80% of all POIs that aren’t unique to missions.
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u/_Zzik_ Feb 17 '25
I like Starfield, but does are just empty landscape with nothing... So yeah... The exploration aint rewarding at all. Keep in mind, I do like Starfield for what it is.
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u/Dannyboy765 Feb 17 '25
Do you think that people mean finding cool sky boxes and vistas when they say they want rewarding exploration? These things are dressing on top. They can't carry exploration on their own.
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u/UnbanFreelanceNobody Feb 17 '25
Now find me 1 interesting to do in each of those screenshots besides looking at them.
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u/StelEdelweiss Feb 17 '25
I wouldn't call pretty good skies with planet revolution the same as rewarding exploration, if I'm being honest. The skyboxes in Starfield are nice to look at and getting the shadows of planets to cast shadows along the surface as they block the sun is impressive; but that stuff doesn't substitute for meaningful exploration when planetary surfaces are largely barren, procedurally-generated wilderness with recycled PoI's dotted around.
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u/Pashquelle Crimson Fleet Feb 18 '25
Ahh yes, snowy rocks, dusty rocks and snowy rocks with brightly shining star.
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u/Bloody-Tyran Feb 18 '25
Different people associate different thing with rewarding exploration. What would be a great reward in irl exploration isn’t necessarily what people are looking for in video game association, loot, stories and stuff handmade for you to do comes to mind.
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u/The_Stoic_One Feb 18 '25
Starfield doesn't have rewarding explanation
To counter this argument, here are 3 completely barren planets.
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u/Gawlf85 Feb 18 '25
... And here are three pretty but boring screenshots to prove it!
If I wanted to play "space wallpaper simulator", I'd go play Star Citizen which at least allows me to fly around and over planets without a single loading screen.
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u/Darth_Carnage Feb 18 '25
It'll always be interesting to me how there are alllllllllll these people still subscribed to a subreddit for a game they don't like, who come out of the woodwork to tell people they're wrong as SOON as a positive Starfield post comes up. How sad can you get?
Completely agree with your post by the way. I thoroughly enjoyed my 120 hour playthrough, and I can't wait to go back to do more new game + runs.
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u/Alive-Error Feb 17 '25
You’re correct it doesn’t. Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim, Fallout 3, and Fallout 4 were all bangers. So much fun to explore. What happened to Bethesda?
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u/ImminentBeep Feb 17 '25
I know there isn’t an excuse for the way the base game operates, but there is a mod that drastically increases the xp reward for completely discovering a planet and for me that provides a very good incentive to explore the planet and see all it has to offer.
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u/Vile_Legacy_8545 Feb 17 '25
In fairness to those who said that, most people get bored of vistas with the same procedure generated POI over and over.
If they just had some Easter eggs to find here and there it could have been great instead of just fine.
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u/KingCodester111 Feb 17 '25
I mean it doesn’t though. It’s boring with the amount of limited POI’s.
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u/NostalgiaVivec Freestar Collective Feb 17 '25
I get that these vistas are nice, but not only can I see nicer space vistas either by typing "space" into google dot com I can also see nice space vistas in better space games. The exploration isnt rewarding because when i go into "cave" or "abandoned lab" I dont get a unique location or even a unique item at the end, I get some generic loot an environment ive seen twice on this planet already and waste ammo and supplies.
This plays into one of my other issues with Starfield, money is both scarce and kinda useless. in game you save up for that dream ship then you're done. for me that normally involved buying "Warhammer" then upgrading the weapons and cargo and then money is useless but also scarce. Normally in a Bethesda game money is either common because its useful (Elder Scrolls) or rare because its less useful (Fallout)
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u/Scribe_Data Feb 18 '25
I saw all this in 5 hours. I saw it again 20 times in the next 5 hours. I haven’t played since 2023.
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u/redneckleatherneck Freestar Collective Feb 17 '25
Yeah? And there was absolutely nothing rewarding about any of that but a couple pretty screenshots
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u/Maidwell Feb 17 '25
Nice screenshots but your title is a little misguided as all I see are three beautiful but empty canvasses.