Starfield

Game Development GD Other Games
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41

It comes down to how much Reality we want in a Sim, and the older I get, the less “tedium” I want. Taking off and landing is fun…the first 10 times I do it, then I just don’t want to do it anymore. I don’t want to go to the bathroom in a sim, much less negotiate how many pieces of toilet paper, which direction I wipe, etc. It’s like playing Sim City, but all I do is sit in Excel and go over budget and zoning reports, because that’s what “real” city planners do.

The SF trailer really crystalized this for me. When I backed, I backed a modern Wing Commander, which is precisely what SF is, in every way. Not so realistic that I’m deciding which finger to pick my nose with, just enough realism that I get the idea and can focus on enjoying the game. And at this point in my life, I’ve 0 tolerance for PvP, so if I can’t have a private server to play with just my friends, then I just play by myself.

42

I hear you. You and I have had numerous conversations on the topic, and i can totally see where SF fits yours playstyle and your desire for space gaming.
For me the livable world of SC is the draw. And the fact that flight skill matters is HUGE for me. I like knowing that if I do get pulled into PvP, it is my skill as a pilot vs the other pilot’s skill. Not a matter of who spent more hours grinding skills or gear or even who spent more money (contrary to so many misguided individuals’ beliefs)

For me, SF looks like too much hand holding, and I don’t mean that in a derogatory way just calling it what it is.
But I can see where limited game time and limited patience with certain game aspects would make that type of game appealing. To you :wink:

43

Once unfettered PvP becomes an element of a game, it becomes the only element that’s rewarded. I’m a patient miner, work hard, build up a stake…ganked, lose my ship and all my shit. I work hard as a long hauler, planning careful routes…ganked, lose my ship and all my shit. Pick your profession or role in the game, if it’s not “PvP and…” whatever else you want to do, you won’t succeed. It’s like 1 drop of oil in a ship’s water supply corrupts the whole thing and makes it poison.

I don’t have the time or reflexes to spend 12 hours aa day “getting gud”, nor is that what I’m looking for in a game, so the moment “get gud” is introduced, that’s the only game in town. The game is already toxic and it’s not even launched yet, I can only imagine what it will look like in 10 years when it eventually comes out, maybe.

My decisions in SF will have as much meaning as they do in SC. The only real difference between them is that, in SF, OTHER people’s decisions don’t have meaning to me. In SC another person can simply decide I’m fucked, and I’m fucked. It doesn’t matter how hard I was working, it doesn’t matter, what defenses I buy, if someone decides they want to ruin my game they can and there are no real consequences for them. THAT is what I don’t want. That smacks entirely too much of the real world, of some guy walking into my local Safeway with a shotgun “just because he can”, and I don’t need that in my life.

44

Great blurb from this article: EVE Online Players Elect Its 17th Council Of Stellar Management, Null-Blocs Still Dominate | MMORPG.com

“While many players are, undoubtedly, happy with the current council, some took to Reddit to bemoan the fact that nullsec corporations and alliances are once again dominating the CSM. Many feel that this doesn’t accurately represent the needs of the average PvE player, specifically those who inhabit high or lowsec for the most part. Many players are pointing to the fact that the large nullblocs can coordinate their votes on single candidates, while the rest of New Eden is more fractured, voting for many candidates instead of honing in on just one.”

PvP isn’t just shooting people, it’s people enforcing their aggression upon all aspects of the game, screwing people over at every level of gameplay. SC likely won’t launch with a “council” either, but it’s inevitable if it gets any size, and the massive PvP corporations will run that as well. That and the PvP players have the loudest voices in the game right now as the top 3 corps are both PvP and larger in total than the next 50 corps.

45

I just reinstalled Star Citizen to give it another go and see what state it is in at this point although I think I already know the answer…Alpha still. I dunno how long I’ll play it for this go around, last time I tried it was awhile ago but it was still buggy as hell and janky. I’m looking to play the game, at this point in life I am not interested in being a paying tester anymore. I feel like I’ll be actually “playing” Starfield before Star Citizen in terms of a “finished” game (because I have no delusions about Starfield needing mods the moment it is released). But SC feels like the longest alpha ever at this point and with nothing really to go on as far as the release of SQ42 yet I’m having trouble being very interested in SC currently. But I’m gonna give it another go around here even though I have tons of other games I should be finishing/giving attention.

I gotta agree with @macallen though, I am not fond of the unfettered PvP element of the current state of the game especially considering the past talk of PvP sliders and consensual PvP, feels like the current state of the game is ripe for ganking. If the bugs/glitches don’t get ya the gankers will! :smirk:

46

Yeah, let me reiterate my position on that…Starfield will be buggy as hell at launch. That’s just how the market is and Bethesda is no better or worse than anyone else. I’ve no illusions of how “perfect” Starfield will be, my expectations are properly dampened, all of the way down to:

  • Do I have a spaceship? Yes
  • Can it look more or less how I want? Yes
  • Am I randomly murdered by some asshole for the LULZ? No

There you go, perfect space game for me :stuck_out_tongue:

47

I will politely disagree with the term “unfettered pvp” as an accurate descriptor for what Star Citizen will be.
However, it is pretty accurate right now.

48

I hear you, but my problem is that, 8 years ago, I predicted that this is how SC would be, PvP wise, and you disagreed then, yet here we are. This is not a Djinn that will go back into the bottle, they can’t allow completely unfettered PvP game-wide without any consequences and then suddenly screw their entire base over by punishing them for how they play, especially when they’re LAUDING them for it now, proudly praising them for their “emergent content” and how creative they are.

49

I still disagree. The game is not complete and critical systems are not in place so I cannot give a fair assessment of how PVP will work. And neither can you.

All we can do is take a hard look at what it is today in its unfinished form, and compare that to what they intend it to be in the future.

50

I’m curious your opinion on my point…they let the Lord of the Flies behaviors into the game until they’re the norm, chasing away all of the carebears (I don’t use this term as offensive, I’m proud to consider myself among them), reducing the population to it’s current toxic norm while they develop other stuff. Do you genuine feel that the game can recover and the current population, the “real backers” as they refer to themselves, the ones putting in the work, won’t rebel and create problems? More importantly, do you think CIG will risk alienating them by taking away their fun?

51

I simply disagree with your assessment. I see 100 carebears in game every time I play for every 2 annoying PvP players. And I am referring to those who will instigate combat, not griefers per se.

So the game does not have to recover from anything. It just needs to be finished.
While I would not say the game rewards bad behavior, it certainly does not do very much to deter it at this time. But the griefers have learned that it is not the game for them. Sure they can come in and stir up trouble from time to time, and you hear about it because nobody is going to post on reddit how they didn’t get ganked. But overall the community is heavily weighted toward care bears but at least 80-85% right now, and I don’t see that changing much.

Even the PVP I typically run into is more tame and if I am not in the mood to fight and I run, there is never a chase.
Pad rammers and the such are around, sure, but those mechanics are exploits what will be dealt with as mechanics come on line. And yeah, there is a big PvP community in SC, but the vast majority of them are interested in combat with other people who actually want to fight them.

52

I’m pretty much agree with your points. SF isn’t likely to be as true to a space sim and will not be all that it looks to offer. It does address a lot of the negatives with SC that we have right now. I dislike the PVP aspect of SC and I don’t see it going away or necessarily getting better than it presently is. PVE gameplay for SC haven’t been really fleshed out yet but I’m not impressed with what I see and the direction that the game developers are taking it.

53

As I mentioned above, any PvE aspects they try to flesh out will always be “tainted” by the PvP aspect. Pick your poison…like to mine? Ganked and robbed by “legitimate pirates”. Like to haul? Hope you like driving back and forth down your driveway because any further than that and ganked. Like to explore? That can only be done far away from the police, so ganked.

Are there “good guy” PvP players? Of course. Heck, they might even be the majority for all I know. But that’s not very comforting when I’m bent over the console of my ship with a rifle shoved up my behind because some guy found it amusing, whispering into my ear “go ahead and report me, I’ve 10 alts that I cycle through, I’ll find you wherever you are, I love the salt in your tears.” That’s the fundamental difference with me and PvP gamers, I not only do not enjoy “the visceral anxiety that comes from the possibility of being murdered at any second”, it nauseates me, makes me physically ill.

I’m old, I can drop dead walking to my mailbox, I don’t need some sociopath reminding me of the fragility of life, especially for their own amusement, nor do I enjoy the idea of spending 100s of hours working on my lawn, making it perfectly, only to have my neighbor come set it on fire for the LULZ…oh, wait, my neighbor can’t do that ,because there are actual consequences, which can never actually exist in SC.

And that’s the sticking point between us, Sim, you believe they can. You believe that:
a) it is possible for SC to add mechanics to the game that will deter sociopathy and
b) CIG will opt to use them when the backlash will be of epic proportions…on a game that’s had a rough road in the market to launch its entire life

Are there mechanics that would deter it? Of course. Your account is locked while you’re in prison for a week, and every recurrence adds another week. It detects how you’re paying, links all of your accounts, and locks all of your toons and impounds your ships as “accomplices”. That would absolutely deter it, and quickly, and they’d set the game on fire to the point that no one would play it. So instead they will make prison a minigame that actually has things you can get that you can’t get anywhere else (armor, ship paints, weapons, etc), making prison a STATUS SYMBOL.

54

To keep this post slightly on topic to begin with. I have not looked at Starfield. I haven’t looked at any new game in over a year and a half. My gaming PC died a long while ago and my gaming laptop is aging and I wouldn’t want to stress it too much with any games newer than Cyberpunk 2077. Because if that goes I would be completely offline for a while.

Simdor and Macallen discussions while getting heated a lot do illustrate two of the sides for SC. To have the triangle you would have to have someone who enjoys the gameplay that Mac despises in a three way conversation. You probably will not find any OTG member that embraces that game play out loud since in most instances that is not approved member behavior.

About the only thing I can contribute is that I personally am still in a wait and see what happens mode where SC is concerned. Which means I am more towards Simdor’ position then Macallen. I’m not in as deep as Macallen and some other OTG’s are. But I am a bit higher than the average player. I’ve put enough in that I could build a new gaming Rig that would last me a long long time (even with the current computer component extortion currently in action) with what I have put into SC over the years. Do I wish I hadn’t done that now, not really. I only ever put in money that was extra at the time. I never did the borrow from Peter to pay Paul because I needed/wanted something now.

Everyone who has backed SC is in the same boat at this point. Both the carebears, the rampant Pvp’ers, the industrialists, and whatever other gameplay you feel that should be represented. We have all given SC some amount of money. They already have our money as Macallen says. They don’t have to care about us now. And to a certain point that is true. But everyone is in that boat. Not just some groups.

So this conflict of views will continue for as long as SC is still in development. I do think there is still the possibility of them putting in the asshat repercussions that Macallen feels they won’t. The asshats are in the same boat as the rest of us, SC has their money already. I don’t think they are the long term targeted audience like Mac feels. I think they haven’t been reigned in because right now they are the ones testing the ship and breaking the systems and they are being watched. So those things will get fixed.

In the end, the targeted audience that SC is going to eventually be put out for at least for the PU will be determined when they announce what they will be selling to keep making themselves money when the PU game goes live. If it is ships and their components, then it will be more towards the PvP crowd. If it is fluff that makes you look good in game but gives no advantages then it will be the carebears.

Only time will tell and I’ll wait to see myself. Not going to get myself worked up one way or the other until it happens. My wallet is closed at this point and has been for years. They can care about me or not. I rolled the dice and I’m still waiting to see if I’ll be a winner or not.

Mith

55

Great post, if I may counter, mostly on semantics…

I don’t despise PvP, I dislike unfettered, non-consentual PvP, being forced to be someone else’s content against my will, with the “dude, you logged in, that’s consent” as the only “justification”. It doesn’t have to be ganking, not every Eve player is a sociopath, that entire game (and now SC as well) are just “get gud or gtfo”, unsympathetic, non-consentual PvP. No skills, levels, talents, perks, etc, it’s for 12 year old twitchers with 20 hours a day to play, Genz influencers who get paid to stream their being stream-sniped, not 60 year old guys who just want to haul and explore.

Arenas, PvP flags, PvP areas, places where people can play how they wish, all good, enjoy. I don’t play PvP games because of this. They are not bad games, I just don’t enjoy them, I self-select to not play them and appreciate that gamers who enjoy them have a market to play in, good on them. I have my PvE games I enjoy, it’s all good.

Everyone who backed SC is absolutely NOT in the same boat. I was flat out lied to, EVERYthing I backed is gone. I backed a PvE game, written by a PvE game designer, with promises of private servers, PvP toggles, and a 100% guarantee I’d be able to avoid PvP. I put a significant amount of money into that game, and it is gone. PvP players are certainly getting the game they wanted, but PvE players are not, regardless of what was said or what money was paid. There’s “scope creep” and then there’s “thanks for the cash, sucker”. We can certainly discuss the minor features that are all unknown, whether the game will launch at all, etc, and we certainly are together in that, but the game I backed was cancelled, after they got my cash, without refunding my money, and they simply started a new game that is the polar opposite of what I want. How I know this was intentional was the fact that they didn’t offer the refund. They didn’t say “we’re changing the direction, going back on what we said, and if this is no longer the game you wanted then we’ll happily refund your money”. What they actually did is change the EULA to make it IMPOSSIBLE to get my money back, like a landlord raising my rent 10% every 6 months until I’m forced out.

56

Nod Mac,

The third side of the triangle I was talking about wasn’t so much PVP as it was just asshattery. The deliberate act of spoiling someone else’s fun.

As to the rest, I can respect that outlook. Everyone has to be true to themselves and look at things in the perspective that makes sense to them.

I’ve always been more of a journey was more important than the destination kind of person. So I made the choice to take the SC fork in the road. I’ll keep walking on it. Just to see where it winds up. Maybe it will completely suck for me, Maybe it will be entertaining for a short while and then I’ll lose interest, maybe it will be something I’ll play the heck out of.

I can agree it isn’t the same thing now as what the sign said when I took the SC fork in the road. I’m along for the ride and I’ll see where it winds up. When the road gets to where it goes, there will be additional forks that I can pick from that will be how I interact with what SC becomes at that point.

For you I hope there might be a way to recoup some of what you feel you were robbed of if the game has a modicum of success through maybe the gray market if it stays a game you don’t want to play.

Mith

57

I was kinda doing that until Starfield, then something clicked for me. Could CIG completely spin around again and give me the game I want? Sure, but I’m 99% sure I’ll have 1000 hours into Starfield before SC even comes close to launching, and if that happens my expectations will change drastically, which is kind of what I was saying up above. If somehow SQ42 can launch before SF, then maybe it can set the standard, but if SF gets out first, gets stable, gets modded, and has 10 million people playing it, SQ42 launching on Lumberyard has no chance and SF will be its measuring stick, which would be unfortunate for CIG.

58

Its bethesda… they always do the same formula…LAUNCH LIKE SHIT… fix stuff. great game that eventually turns amazing once they turn it over to the modders…rinse and repeat. They are VERY RELIABLE in their weak points and strengths.

59

You forgot “let the mod community fix their issues, then steal the mods and sell them back to us as features” :slight_smile: I’ve no illusions that my first few weeks are going to be amazing.

One thing that the SF community is throwing around, this is Todd’s dream, has always been. He didn’t want to do FO76 and really didn’t manage it. The team said he just sort of walked in, got management on them, and then left to work on his pet project. I’m not sure if that gives me hope or not :slight_smile:

60

In their defense i think we can all agree that plan failed miserably so we can just let it all go lol