So, in the last post I wrote on the subject of Starfield, I mentioned that I had a couple of little gripes with it, and said that I hadn't really gotten into the game. Well, I'm happy to announce that a little bit more playing has hooked me... but, there are a couple of things I don't like.
Too Much Talking - I don't mean characters in general, I usually like to ask questions in games, especially when I'm interested in them, but this game has a bit of a problem that I've noticed.
I find that when I come across named characters who are in a conversation, they seem to talk, and talk... and talk some more, while I stand by for a couple of minutes waiting for a chance to speak with them. The main culprit of this is the Mayor of New Atlantis. She was talking with three different people when I arrived and I had to stand aside while they went on and on before I could interact with them and receive a potential quest... let's face it, it's not my first rodeo, by now I know that when NPC's are talking, there's a quest going and I'll stand by and wait to be given it. It's not a major issue, but I did/ do find it mildly infuriating when it takes too long for me to get the quest and carry on with what I'm doing.
The Menus Are Annoying - I seem to spend so much of my time on menus, especially when jumping from planet to planet. I just find the whole experience a pain to deal with in general. I have to find my quest, activate it, hit my star map, see the planet I'm at, zoom to the solar system, zoom further to find the solar system I need to be at, click it and hit travel, then find the planet, moon, or station I need to be at, hit it and travel to it, then I need to land.
Maybe there was just no other way for the developers to do this, but I just wonder if there is a better way than the rigmarole we have to go through, just to hand in some simple fetch quest.
Loading Screens and Animations - I find myself getting annoyed by the amount of loading screens there are. Like, I get the game needs to load, but loading + plus an un-skippable animation should be a criminal offense. It's a time waster, and with a game this big we really don't need any time wasting.
Some Quests Are Poorly Designed - Spoiler Alert - So, I was on Mars looking for someone to do with the Vanguard questline, I won't go into too much detail, but I just want to explain a bit of the convoluted nature of this particular quest.
I get to Mars, talk to a local bartender about this person, he says he won't tell me where the person is unless I was to pay off his debt, I have two options - pay it myself, or wipe it from their database - but, there's a third option in the form of clearing an outpost on Mars and retrieving some data, I leave the base, walk to the outpost, clear it, get the data, bring it back to the guy, the guy sends me to the debtors to trade the data for wiping the debt - they accept, I go back to the guy, he tells me to go back to the bartender, the bartender tells me the person is in a secret part of the base I just cleared out... So, I need to head back the outpost to get the guy and bring him back to the base... It's irritating and feels like such a waste of time, most of this could have been avoided if I just had a bloody communicator of some kind so I could just ring them and transfer the data remotely.
Walking Is Annoying - Why can't we have a speeder of some kind? I'm like 10 hours in at the moment and there's no sign of getting one yet. I get that fast travel is available, but walking the length of each planet to unlock locations to fast travel between just feels very tedious and doesn't fill me with confidence when seeing just how many planets there are out there.
Some Quests Are A Bit Stupid - So, while exploring New Atlantis I found a man called Tony who was talking to himself about how much he loved coffee while sitting outside a coffee shop. While chatting, he told me he had a girlfriend he was thinking of marrying which he asked me to tell her, and that was the most interesting thing about this guy. I continue on my way, and while in a different district, I hear a janitor talk about her boyfriend Tony, I think, Hah, I wonder if I can spoil the surprise about the proposal, sadly I can't, but I wonder then if I can steal her off Tony just because his voice annoyed me. No, I can't do that either which is a shame, what can I do? Is there anything interesting about these two named characters? Yes, I can tell her she looks tired, and she asks me to get her a coffee, or a 'Terracino' as she called it. I go through a loading screen back to the coffee shop where I met that prick Tony and buy her the drink, bring it back, and wonder if this might build to something better. Nope, she says thanks and carries on sweeping.
It's just one example of a stupid quest, but there are other ones that feel pointless, like the woman on Mars who asks me to pick her up a beer from New Atlantis.
These types of quests really annoy me. I think it's the duty of a game developer to hide their fetch quests behind interesting writing.
Apart From Those Few Nitpicks
I'm actually really enjoying the game and think it's a lot of fun, I have found the main quests and some of the characters interesting.
It's going to be a lot of fun getting a new ship and getting into the ship-building/ upgrading which I haven't gotten into yet. Currently, I'm just blasting through quests and leveling myself up while also building enough credits to go a bit wild with the ship-building.
I didn't get a chance to talk about what I like in detail, so I may have to leave that for a separate post. I didn't expect my dislike section to get so long to be honest.