this post was submitted on 07 Sep 2023
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Absolutely makes sense for most planets to be rather barren. What I found a bit disappointing so far - keeping in mind I started yesterday and I'm only a few hours in - is how mostly when you land on a planet there is a key point of interest (an outpost, a mining facility, a city etc) at a landing site and then immediately a whole lot of randomly generated nothing around it. No roads or paths, NPCs, houses etc. I haven't really been to a place where I got that Skyrim feeling of going out into the wilderness and finding interesting things. I hope that later on there are at least a few areas with more substantial exploration. Still enjoying the game though.
This idea is something I've heard a lot about Starfield and is why I don't think I'll pick it up, at least until a big sale. To me, it seems like they made a fair number of design decisions around what "makes sense" rather than what's fun.
That's exactly what they've done.
A "barren" planet still has stuff. In the 5 minutes or so that I did random exploration I found a colonist hut that was razed by pirates with a hidden chest with like 3k credits, and a random vendor who was going a little nuts for being alone so long. Nothing incredible, but enough to make the place not feel dead on a random frozen moon.
i found a random trader with their alien dog
I just figured they put it there for some modder to let people build their own bases.
When it comes to the barren planets, it just adds a bit of immersion IMO. Nobody is forcing you to visit those rocks, and you probably won't ever land on most of them, but it's cool that you can. So to me, it's not something that has a negative effect on my enjoyment of the game.
Makes sense to wait for a sale though. Mods and updates will no doubt vastly improve the game. Personally, I just play it on gamepass.
I'm the same way. Even just going from the "lore" most planets aren't going to have colorful interesting cities in it with unique locations and things to do. A lot of the rocks are going to be desolate with nothing on it, because they should be. When you find something of interest in the desolate void of space, it's gonna be interesting. Every planet having the same formulaic procedurally shaped bar, merchant, and a fetch quest would have people foaming at the mouth about how Bethesda replaced their specific crafted environments with shitty generated ones with no soul.
Ah, I see you’ve played No Man’s Sky, too!
I actually have never even downloaded it! Heard good things post-release, but it never really drew me in.
Yeah, it's all part of the freedom the game offers for what you want to do. If you want to be a cargo hauler you'll rarely see a barren planet as you're delivering to settlements. If you want to be a bounty hunter, you may see them once or twice when a bounty has holed up there, but if you want to be a space prospector, you will need to spend more time exploring and locating resources to set up extraction plants for.all valid methods of interacting with the universe with different needs for the barren planets.
I haven't played it yet (A second play through of BG3 sounds more appealing right now), but in general for an singleplayer RPG I would prefer a small full setting to an empty large one. If the environment has almost nothing of interest in it, then I'm going to just be glued to the objective marker, which while not a deal breaker, definitely hurts the experience. In a more curated environment I would ignore the objective marker and go off in a random direction. This means my experience is more unique and gives a proper sense of exploration which can make the game feel bigger even though it is technically smaller.
Yout have to factor in the life sim-element of Bethesda RPGs too. You can theoretically become a mining magnate in Starfield using those planets and resource extraction outposts. That content is there for those kind of players. If you just want to do the directed side content, then as you say, you'd just follow the markets and not need to interact with it. Your exploration will be in the "dungeons" looking about for lore and loot.
I wouldn't shape any of your decision to playor not play on this particular detail. It really has little to no impact on the game whatsoever. There are a lot of really interesting worlds to explore, it's really not worth the amount of discussion lately.
Not saying this means "this is the game for you". Just that this one facet shouldn't enter into your assessment at all, in my opinion.
It could really benefit from some sort of vehicle as well.
I land on a planet, sprint 300m to the first point of interest, 900m to the next, 700m to the next etc. and most of it is just sprinting through nothing…
Feels like it’s just wasting my time, as there is literally nothing in between. I think a little hover bike would be a great addition to the game.
I haven't played Starfield, but that sounds like No Man's Sky when it first released. A few points of interest per planet, nothing else of note to do there, and the entire planet just became a rather boring trip from point A to point B to point C and nothing more.
The difference being that was NMS whole loop at launch. Exploring barren and mostly empty planets is just side content to a lot of directed story and side missions here.
You're saying that doesn't describe the current state of No Man's Sky? The only notable buildings I've found are the same 3 tiny cookie-cutter outposts dotted randomly all across most planets. Oh sorry, 4 now if you count the camps from the Interceptor update and happen to be on a dissonant planet.
I feel like it wouldn't take much effort to do better so that's sad if Starfield hasn't.
It's similar, though the the actual points of interest are way more fleshed out than in NMS and sometimes have unique quests etc.
that would be perfect, maybe a vehicle with scanner and some mining tool so you could analyse and collect few minerals along the way. would be great QOL improvement.
imo the entire game needs a once over to add in a ton of QOL improvements.
I will say, finding a vehicle and not being able to drive it was a bit disappointing. But otherwise, I just wish there were more resources on the barren worlds.