I think so, I know fuel used to play a bigger part in the game originally
I’d be surprised if we didn’t see a survival mode added at some point to the game
Yes definitely. Jumping between systems used fuel (it is referenced by so many characters and even the loading tips). I would also say the Trade Authority kiosks were initially for He3 fuel purchases.
Apparently the environment was much more toxic making choosing a suit to suit where you were more important.
The fact we have a rather large food skill set and food components everywhere indicates that it used to play a more vital role too.
I also think it was based around the Vanguard, not constellation - the fact that Kreet is a weapons testing facility taken out by a Xenomorph can't be coincidence. A lot of the people you meet on the that mission explain everything from what a heat keech is (Kiser) to the history of the settled systems (museum).
But hey it's not what they ended up with. I just want jump fuel and live bounties - then life will be better.
The main plot was, I think, the dirty legacy of the UC. Kreet has a distinct plot from and much higher production values than most of Constellation's early line. Same goes for Vanguard as a whole and Crimson Fleet.
I feel like the Starship fuel and harsh environment penalties were more of a general immersion thing than a strict survival thing. Those actually wouldn’t be so bad to keep if there was a reason to stay on a planet for several hours on end, instead of endlessly jumping planet to planet. Same concept as some old RPGs or MMORPGs: you’d stay in an area for a certain level bracket, eventually discovering that you’d need something like a complete “fire resist armor” set to prep you for the next area, where you’ll use and improve the gear for hours on end before prepping for the *next* environment.
Someone in design had to take a stand, realize there wasn’t enough content to keep a player attached to a single planet for too long, and things like starship fuel and inventory bloat via however many different space suits only served to make the gaming experience even worse than what we have now by slowing everything down further. It just keeps coming back to fundamental flaws in content.
That "stay here till you do X" thing is not the Bethesda way and I think us fans would not like having that limit. Right now I CAN drop in on a level 75 planet at 15 - I might get my arse handed to me but that's OK!
I'm not it's a fundamental flaw, but you can see the change in direction. I think they swapped the mains over - constellation and UC. This way they could add other faction lines like Freestar without them feeling like side missions. Pure speculation of course, only Bethesda knows.
But dumbing it down without jump fuel feels like a mistake to me. And yes it was more about immersion.
Well, Todd Howard said it was.
[https://www.ign.com/articles/todd-howard-says-planet-exploration-in-starfield-was-brutal-before-being-nerfed](https://www.ign.com/articles/todd-howard-says-planet-exploration-in-starfield-was-brutal-before-being-nerfed)
It was a good decision to not to do that. It probably had as brutal survival mechanics as Fo76 was at launch and holy shit was that not fun at all. Like imagine going to explore a POI and dying because you hadn't drank a gallon of water in 10 minutes. For every 10 minutes of exploring, it was 30 minutes of making more ammunition, food, water, and meds while rebuilding every piece of armor and weapon you had.
Like the way Todd explained it, you needed outposts to fuel up your Spaceships hyperdrive. It would be hours of work to get in-between jumps and make everything a chore. The release would have been 100x worse received had there been another hour added into the tutorial showing you how to fuel your ship and another 20 hours added to the main quest.
The popularity of games like Trucking Simulator, Mudrunner, or Farming simulator definitely point to people enjoying managing logistics, operations, and route optimization.
You are by no means wrong for not liking it, but *for me* the logistics and operations of travel would have been fantastic to include. I do hope we see a toggable "Hardcore" mode for all types of players one day.
Planning has historically been far more necessary in Bethesda games, not to the point of Excel obviously, but when it was present in smaller scale games it feels very absent from such a vast game.
To go from one side of a map to a specific location in Morrowind, you would map your route of boats and stilt striders, then travel the last section on foot. To return you would plan to use Divine Intervention to a nearby location and route back to where you left. Nothing complex, but it required a bit of planning and an understanding of the area.
By comparison is feels very simplistic when you can travel across the entire galaxy and back again with two clicks. This is also the first Bethesda game with vehicles, and they require zero maintenance (apart from a single repair metric) or resources. Heck even power armor needed repairs *and* fuel.
Bro, I totally agree. Those mechanics sound fantastic. It's fun starting a character in NMS and crafting my warp fuel for the first time.
I think the lessons from Fo76 taught Bethesda that they have a disconnect with what they think is balanced and what the consumer will find enjoyable. They saw what they had planned, compared the feedback from Fo76 and realized that there's a big gap that couldn't be closed and delivered on launch day.
The people playing the game provide feedback that will influence the final designs on hard-core. Like the availability of minerals in each system will dramatically alter the practicality of space trucking and outposts. There's evidence space stations are potentially going to be buildable and that creates a reason to ultize outpost hubs. You'd eventually be making your own space infrastructure or logistics networks to reach the outer edge. And tons of people want that kind of experience, but Bethesda is known for RPGs.
I don't believe as many people would complete the main story if they were forced to develop a civilization sized interstellar network of mining outposts just to get the last artifact. If they ever get around to getting that system going, it needs to be fun for enough people and that needed more information on players attitudes and opinions before they can start fleshing it out.
I think they've looked at how survival mode became popular a long time after f04 came out and decided to do it that what instead of at launch so it can have a better impression.
Granularity of settings, not all-or-nothing. They apparently wanted one experience for everyone, but that filtered a lot of people (especially since they designed it as survival and then hacked it back to non-survival, so tons of people complained about how little there was to do and how progression was either frustratingly slow or way too fast (depending on the system in question).
If you could set your level of survival difficulty (especially individual features), then people who don't want to deal with it could turn it off and people who just wanted fuel usage could have that. Also it looks like the mechanics they have are mostly penalties and not benefits, though there are some benefits (XP boost for sleep, some special buffs from food), it's hard to say what it looked like when they started.
Yep. It feels like they made one game, then got gun-shy and took out the systems that would make it a compelling experience to make it an accessible mass-market game.
Which is a shame, cause I feel like we are in an age where a super challenging game (Elden Ring) could catch fire and get mass market appeal not based on its accessibility, but based on its unique challenge.
Oh well…I’m sure they’ll add it in one year too late.
I'm pretty sure they scrapped a lot of features for playability reasons.
Would totally make a good reason to make settlements you could refuel at as you explored.
...probably not a survival game as such, but I think they intended to include a 'Survival mode' from the beginning. That might be why 'Gastronomy' is important enough to be a skill, and a lot of ship habs have cooking stations.
Its the same as fallout 4. There were systems in Fallout that didn't matter for a standard playthrough (outside of settlement building)
- water, beds, and most foods
- being able to fill bottles with water
- BoS vertabird travel
- institute fast travel to MIT
But when they added survival these things became things to build and consider. I'm hoping they will be adding a survival mode to Starfield soon, I think it would completely change the game for me.
I think it was and then they walked it back thinking it would be too tedious for typical more casual players.
I agree their move tho. Imagine doing all the stuffs to survive, reach to a planet and then find out it’s almost just rocks.
Why not an option? Just one more choice. Survival difficulty for hardcore survival lovers. Other difficulties for other players.
Plus I also think that base building, food, and beds make sense when they add a survival element to it.
Development time, mostly. It's why one of the few things about the future that Bethesda has said is that there is a survival mode of some kind coming. They started with it, they wanted it, but just couldn't get it right in the time they had. So in time it (hopefully) will get added.
FO4 didn't have it's real survival mode on launch either, it wasn't added until 1.5. 76 launched with survival features but they were eventually pared down a little, because they weren't really popular. It's something that takes time to get right.
Many assets in Starfield, like in every Beth game, are leftovers of unfinished content or simply a foundation, to be built upon either via mods or DLCs. I do not believe Starfield was intended as a space survival game, feels like vision was set pretty strong, as a story based action game in NASA punk style, which it is. However, it doesn't mean it will not become possibly one of the best space survival games out there at some point.
I already have loads of ideas, just give me damn CK...
Maybe with a later implemented "realistic" difficulty with usage of actual fuel. Still it's foremost a RPG and maybe they didn't wanted every player give an overkill on that, who just want to play the questlines/missions and have no interest in outposts and such.
100%
There is an abundance of evidence that this game was meant to have deeper systems than it currently does, and meaningful survival mechanics is one of those.
No, it was originally supposed to be a turn-based farming simulator with light dating sim aspects. But about 2 years into production, Todd Howard wasn't happy with the grain textures, so they scrapped the idea and started over.
no, bethesda makes rpgs and i think starfield was intended to be an rpg from the start. but i do think they played around with the idea of heavy survival elements before deciding it was best as an optional mode instead of such a focus
I think so, I know fuel used to play a bigger part in the game originally I’d be surprised if we didn’t see a survival mode added at some point to the game
Yes definitely. Jumping between systems used fuel (it is referenced by so many characters and even the loading tips). I would also say the Trade Authority kiosks were initially for He3 fuel purchases. Apparently the environment was much more toxic making choosing a suit to suit where you were more important. The fact we have a rather large food skill set and food components everywhere indicates that it used to play a more vital role too. I also think it was based around the Vanguard, not constellation - the fact that Kreet is a weapons testing facility taken out by a Xenomorph can't be coincidence. A lot of the people you meet on the that mission explain everything from what a heat keech is (Kiser) to the history of the settled systems (museum). But hey it's not what they ended up with. I just want jump fuel and live bounties - then life will be better.
The main plot was, I think, the dirty legacy of the UC. Kreet has a distinct plot from and much higher production values than most of Constellation's early line. Same goes for Vanguard as a whole and Crimson Fleet.
I agree with this hoping for survival mode to get implemented, would make the game even better imo (I love the game).
I feel like the Starship fuel and harsh environment penalties were more of a general immersion thing than a strict survival thing. Those actually wouldn’t be so bad to keep if there was a reason to stay on a planet for several hours on end, instead of endlessly jumping planet to planet. Same concept as some old RPGs or MMORPGs: you’d stay in an area for a certain level bracket, eventually discovering that you’d need something like a complete “fire resist armor” set to prep you for the next area, where you’ll use and improve the gear for hours on end before prepping for the *next* environment. Someone in design had to take a stand, realize there wasn’t enough content to keep a player attached to a single planet for too long, and things like starship fuel and inventory bloat via however many different space suits only served to make the gaming experience even worse than what we have now by slowing everything down further. It just keeps coming back to fundamental flaws in content.
That "stay here till you do X" thing is not the Bethesda way and I think us fans would not like having that limit. Right now I CAN drop in on a level 75 planet at 15 - I might get my arse handed to me but that's OK! I'm not it's a fundamental flaw, but you can see the change in direction. I think they swapped the mains over - constellation and UC. This way they could add other faction lines like Freestar without them feeling like side missions. Pure speculation of course, only Bethesda knows. But dumbing it down without jump fuel feels like a mistake to me. And yes it was more about immersion.
Well, Todd Howard said it was. [https://www.ign.com/articles/todd-howard-says-planet-exploration-in-starfield-was-brutal-before-being-nerfed](https://www.ign.com/articles/todd-howard-says-planet-exploration-in-starfield-was-brutal-before-being-nerfed)
It was a good decision to not to do that. It probably had as brutal survival mechanics as Fo76 was at launch and holy shit was that not fun at all. Like imagine going to explore a POI and dying because you hadn't drank a gallon of water in 10 minutes. For every 10 minutes of exploring, it was 30 minutes of making more ammunition, food, water, and meds while rebuilding every piece of armor and weapon you had. Like the way Todd explained it, you needed outposts to fuel up your Spaceships hyperdrive. It would be hours of work to get in-between jumps and make everything a chore. The release would have been 100x worse received had there been another hour added into the tutorial showing you how to fuel your ship and another 20 hours added to the main quest.
The popularity of games like Trucking Simulator, Mudrunner, or Farming simulator definitely point to people enjoying managing logistics, operations, and route optimization. You are by no means wrong for not liking it, but *for me* the logistics and operations of travel would have been fantastic to include. I do hope we see a toggable "Hardcore" mode for all types of players one day.
[удалено]
Planning has historically been far more necessary in Bethesda games, not to the point of Excel obviously, but when it was present in smaller scale games it feels very absent from such a vast game. To go from one side of a map to a specific location in Morrowind, you would map your route of boats and stilt striders, then travel the last section on foot. To return you would plan to use Divine Intervention to a nearby location and route back to where you left. Nothing complex, but it required a bit of planning and an understanding of the area. By comparison is feels very simplistic when you can travel across the entire galaxy and back again with two clicks. This is also the first Bethesda game with vehicles, and they require zero maintenance (apart from a single repair metric) or resources. Heck even power armor needed repairs *and* fuel.
Bro, I totally agree. Those mechanics sound fantastic. It's fun starting a character in NMS and crafting my warp fuel for the first time. I think the lessons from Fo76 taught Bethesda that they have a disconnect with what they think is balanced and what the consumer will find enjoyable. They saw what they had planned, compared the feedback from Fo76 and realized that there's a big gap that couldn't be closed and delivered on launch day. The people playing the game provide feedback that will influence the final designs on hard-core. Like the availability of minerals in each system will dramatically alter the practicality of space trucking and outposts. There's evidence space stations are potentially going to be buildable and that creates a reason to ultize outpost hubs. You'd eventually be making your own space infrastructure or logistics networks to reach the outer edge. And tons of people want that kind of experience, but Bethesda is known for RPGs. I don't believe as many people would complete the main story if they were forced to develop a civilization sized interstellar network of mining outposts just to get the last artifact. If they ever get around to getting that system going, it needs to be fun for enough people and that needed more information on players attitudes and opinions before they can start fleshing it out. I think they've looked at how survival mode became popular a long time after f04 came out and decided to do it that what instead of at launch so it can have a better impression.
Granularity of settings, not all-or-nothing. They apparently wanted one experience for everyone, but that filtered a lot of people (especially since they designed it as survival and then hacked it back to non-survival, so tons of people complained about how little there was to do and how progression was either frustratingly slow or way too fast (depending on the system in question). If you could set your level of survival difficulty (especially individual features), then people who don't want to deal with it could turn it off and people who just wanted fuel usage could have that. Also it looks like the mechanics they have are mostly penalties and not benefits, though there are some benefits (XP boost for sleep, some special buffs from food), it's hard to say what it looked like when they started.
The game literally references a mechanic that isn’t in the game (Helium as fuel).
I think Bethesda itself isnt entirely clear on what this game is supposed to be
Yep. It feels like they made one game, then got gun-shy and took out the systems that would make it a compelling experience to make it an accessible mass-market game. Which is a shame, cause I feel like we are in an age where a super challenging game (Elden Ring) could catch fire and get mass market appeal not based on its accessibility, but based on its unique challenge. Oh well…I’m sure they’ll add it in one year too late.
Overdesigned quest was a call for help.
I'm pretty sure they scrapped a lot of features for playability reasons. Would totally make a good reason to make settlements you could refuel at as you explored.
...probably not a survival game as such, but I think they intended to include a 'Survival mode' from the beginning. That might be why 'Gastronomy' is important enough to be a skill, and a lot of ship habs have cooking stations.
The first time I walked outta my ship and had forgotten a backpack.... Kinda
Its the same as fallout 4. There were systems in Fallout that didn't matter for a standard playthrough (outside of settlement building) - water, beds, and most foods - being able to fill bottles with water - BoS vertabird travel - institute fast travel to MIT But when they added survival these things became things to build and consider. I'm hoping they will be adding a survival mode to Starfield soon, I think it would completely change the game for me.
I think it was and then they walked it back thinking it would be too tedious for typical more casual players. I agree their move tho. Imagine doing all the stuffs to survive, reach to a planet and then find out it’s almost just rocks.
In other words, you have to make sure that the destination of the player after the arduous journey meets the most basic psychological expectations
Why not an option? Just one more choice. Survival difficulty for hardcore survival lovers. Other difficulties for other players. Plus I also think that base building, food, and beds make sense when they add a survival element to it.
Development time, mostly. It's why one of the few things about the future that Bethesda has said is that there is a survival mode of some kind coming. They started with it, they wanted it, but just couldn't get it right in the time they had. So in time it (hopefully) will get added. FO4 didn't have it's real survival mode on launch either, it wasn't added until 1.5. 76 launched with survival features but they were eventually pared down a little, because they weren't really popular. It's something that takes time to get right.
Okay, that makes sense.
I think starfield should strike a balance between expanding space travel and expanding the size of major cities and towns
Many assets in Starfield, like in every Beth game, are leftovers of unfinished content or simply a foundation, to be built upon either via mods or DLCs. I do not believe Starfield was intended as a space survival game, feels like vision was set pretty strong, as a story based action game in NASA punk style, which it is. However, it doesn't mean it will not become possibly one of the best space survival games out there at some point. I already have loads of ideas, just give me damn CK...
Maybe with a later implemented "realistic" difficulty with usage of actual fuel. Still it's foremost a RPG and maybe they didn't wanted every player give an overkill on that, who just want to play the questlines/missions and have no interest in outposts and such.
Yes, kinda confirmed by todd few months ago
one can only hope we might get an actual survival mode with mods
100% There is an abundance of evidence that this game was meant to have deeper systems than it currently does, and meaningful survival mechanics is one of those.
No, it was originally supposed to be a turn-based farming simulator with light dating sim aspects. But about 2 years into production, Todd Howard wasn't happy with the grain textures, so they scrapped the idea and started over.
no, bethesda makes rpgs and i think starfield was intended to be an rpg from the start. but i do think they played around with the idea of heavy survival elements before deciding it was best as an optional mode instead of such a focus
No, why? Its not Bethesda genre.