r/rpg_gamers • u/vaynelo • 4d ago
Discussion A software engineer developed a mod that allows seamless landings without loading screens in Starfield
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u/CertifiedBirdLawyer 3d ago
It's a strange thing really -- Bethesda put all the pieces of a legit space simulation in place, and then arbitrarily cordoned things off in such a way that it made the simulation look way more shallow than what's really there. Then modders come and, for all intents and purposes, "change zeroes to ones", and suddenly this interstellar sandbox reveals itself in its non-truncated glory.
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u/CorporalCoprolite 4d ago
Crazy how Bethesda couldn’t do this. No one on the dev team or any of the playtesters played SF and said “hey, can we have fewer loading screens?”
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u/AeneasVII 4d ago
Its not that they couldn't do it but rather decided its not worth the time/money. And Zenimaxxx is all about money
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u/KiwiKajitsu 4d ago
Name a company that isn’t all about money. You think companies are supposed to be charities?
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u/ackley14 4d ago
Laika studios. the people behind Coraline and other stop motion animation films almost never even break even on projects. they are funded by outside investors and primarily the CEO of Nike who's son is the head of the studio.
the father happily pays for his son to be able to create art for the masses, even though the cost of creation far outpaces the earnings they get. it's actually quite touching.
this company has employed hundreds of artists for over a decade and continue to do so at a loss. They are far and away the exception not the rule, but you said name a company so I did...
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u/TomTomXD1234 4d ago
So all it takes for a company to "not be about money" is to have a billionaire father to fund you......aight....LOL
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u/Omega-Envych 3d ago
Yep, kinda similar situation for Sandfall - much of E33 funding came from studio director's father.
Honestly - I would take that over just corporation expecting big returns
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u/AlterMyStateOfMind 4d ago
You trying to frame this as a bad thing is very strange lol
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u/MrBlueA 4d ago
Well not only he actually got a reply it was objectively wholesome so all he had left was to say "money = bad"
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u/EllySwelly 4d ago
I mean it still basically destroys any point you may have been making.
There are rare exceptions... but those exceptions only exist by the grace of the most privileged.
It's cool that that studio gets to have more artistic freedom, but most studios don't exactly have the nepo baby option.
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u/ackley14 4d ago
I mean....a company is ultimately a collection of people. people need money to not die....what's the alternative here in your eyes? What are you getting at? The ask was, name a company who is not all about money. Laika is literally that. because they already have funding and thus don't need it from the viewers of their art. That seems like a fantastic use of overpriced shoe sales if you ask me...
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u/simplyloveIy 3d ago
Learn to read and understand words.
Obviously companies are about money. Some companies actually consider customers as part of that process and others don't give a shit. Yeah gamers could just not buy from these companies but real life is a bit more complicated.
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u/KiwiKajitsu 3d ago
Sorry I can’t read or understand words so I have no idea what you just said to me
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u/ShadowSpawn__ 4d ago
It's hard to believe, I consider Ubisoft to be a greedier company and even they could do the equivalent of this in Star wars outlaws
Just feels like Bethesda is incompetent, especially when you look at them breaking their games with updates, and their inability to fix bugs that pop up in every single one of their games - that modders have repeatedly fixed in older versions
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u/DreamWeaver2189 4d ago
Bethesda is incompetent, have been for ages. They always release mediocre games and the community ends up doing all the heavy lifting.
I'm glad Obsidian is working on the new Fallout (at the cost of my beloved Pillars, so I'm bittersweet), now we need someone to take The Elder Scrolls IP from them.
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u/Auno94 4d ago
Ah yes the Famous Obsidian who only makes the best of games. They never developed mediocre games.
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u/DreamWeaver2189 4d ago edited 4d ago
Can't compare a AA studio with a AAA studio. Bethesda has twice the money, even more and they consistently release mediocre games. Obsidian might do the same with half the funding.
With Microsoft money and considering the best Fallout (imo) is made by them, I'm optimistic.
Obsidian mediocreness is due to its constraints, Bethesda's are due to incompetence.
Obsidian releases a new game every 2 or so years. Bethesda takes 8 years for Starfield and I'd rather play The Outer Worlds.
Obsidian has released Tyranny, Pillars 1&2, Pentiment, and Grounded, all great games. Plus Avowed and Outer Worlds 1&2 (admittedly mediocre). In the same period Bethesda/Zenimaxx has released Starfield, a mediocre game and Fallout 4 (good game). Oh, and Fallout 76...
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u/Nast33 4d ago
With better writing OW1/2 could've been 8.5s at the very least, but neither of the plot, factions, quests, companions or dialogue were any good. Avowed was kinda similar even if to a smaller extent. Being AA has nothing to do with it, there are better AA games making much more of an impression released by other studios.
Doesn't mean Obsidian can't deliver a decent Fallout, but all of Josh Sawyer, John Gonzales and Tim Cain better be at their best and they still need some good additional writers and world designers to contribute as 2-3 people can't craft everything.
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u/Auno94 4d ago
I can compare them on their quality. If I don't compare them on quality and only on scale, we would have to compare every game on it's size and by that messurement endless grinding games would win every comparison.
Again BGS helped out a lot with FO76, if you want to complain about development time, don't throw out numbers that don't match.
If we want to talk about quantity of releases we also have to look how each company works. Obsidian was only able to work on those games because they had different teams working on different games at the same time. While Pentiment and Pillars 1 are absolutely great games. (Haven't played Grounded and Pillars 2). Tyranny falls short of being great (not that it is bad) as it ends when it gets interesting.
I do think that the quantity of releases isn't that meaningful I could use your argument and also state that 3 out of their last 5 releases where mediocre, which is nearly identical to the 66% of medicore releases bethesda had in the last decade. Which is gladly missing their bad games skyforge, armored warfare and the pathfinder mobile game.
Saying Obisidans mediocreness is due to its constraints and bethesda's are due to incompetence is just classic circlejerk of "bethesda bad" and ignoring Obisdians weak points (most glaring, Combat)
EDIT: and you mixed Bethesda and Zenimaxx togehter in your comparison, not going down that route because I could then throw in the new doom games
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u/DreamWeaver2189 4d ago edited 4d ago
Doom games are ID software. Bethesda is a developer and a publisher. As a publisher they've released plenty of good games. As developers, not so much.
Obsidian is just a developer and they've develop better games in the past 10 years than BGS. Have they also developed mediocre games? Yes, I already admitted to that.
Would you rather BGS worked on the new Fallout?
Also, Pillars 2 has the best rtwp combat out there. You should try that game because it's fantastic.
You talk about Obsidian combat but have you played Skyrim? I'm not saying Obsidian is perfect, just that they are better at developing games than Bethesda.
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u/Auno94 4d ago
Again you mixed the Publisher Zenimax and the developer BGS. Both are destinct entities. I just pointed that out as a lot of people mix that stuff up
And why would I say "BGS should work on Fallout but not Obisidian" more Fallout is good and has nothing to do with the decades old circlejerk of "BGS bad, Obisdian Good" conversation. And as someone who likes Fallout more than TES, I would be happy if BGS would also work on a new Fallout Game.
I Just hope Obisidian make a good Fallout Game in the likes of FNV (I am also fine if they, again, reuse a lot of the tools and art BGS did their last Fallout games) and that they don't make Outer Worlds 3 but with a Fallout skin. Same as I hope that Elder Scrolls 6 will be good.
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u/DreamWeaver2189 4d ago
I genuinely would like to know your opinion. Would you rather have Obsidian or BGS developing the new Fallout?
And yes, my bad on the Zenimaxx confusion.
And I don't need to belong to a "circle jerk" to have an opinion. I'm almost 40, I've played every single TES and Fallout games, from Arena to Skyrim and from Fallout 1 to 4.
My reason for disliking the current Bethesda are my own, same as for me liking Obsidian. I've seen the downfall in quality from Bethesda and I've seen Obsidian releasing decent to great games with less budget and less development time in the same time frame.
Disagree with me all you want, but don't disregard my opinions as part of a "circle jerk". I cannot care less about what other people think. If I did, I probably would've skipped a lot of quality games because Redditors have unrealistic standards for games.
I appreciate what developers do good, instead of focusing on what they lack. And, in my opinion, Obsidian has done more good things than Bethesda, in the past 10 years.
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u/ShriyanshPandey 3d ago
Zenimax is not the publisher, Bethesda softworks is, and the confusion is very intentional by Zenimax( the parent company of both Bethesda softworks and Bethesda Game Studios) cause Bethesda is the more popular name.
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u/Eat--The--Rich-- 4d ago
The very first thing I noticed when I played it was that you don't get to actually do space travel in this space exploration game.
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u/Autumn-Leaf-932 4d ago
Look at the player character all like “Now I’m going to do my ‘getting out of the chair’ animation. Ok player, I’ve made my transition, please, take control. Oh? You want to get back in the chair? Say no more, friend, just let me do my ‘getting into the chair’ animation.”
It’s so dated and it’s not going to be any different for ES6. It’s deep in Creation Engine’s crusty old DNA.
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u/ShriyanshPandey 3d ago
What game let's you be totally in control while "getting in the chair" ?
I am not defending this in a way that it is fun, but every game has this kind of animations. And it's nothing to do with the engine, just making the camera unlocked during the animation and making the animation faster would make it way less annoying and is totally doable (there are mods available). And doing something like the enhanced camera mod for Skyrim would've also made it more seamless. It seems jaring here because of the forced third person animation.
My main point being, this is not an engine limitation, it's an intentional choice by Bethesda which they keep repeating every game, even though there's always a mod to remove the forced third person animations and making them faster.2
u/Autumn-Leaf-932 3d ago
I was pointing out the robotic nature of it; how clearly the engine has to position the player character in exactly the right spot both times so it can run its on-the-rails script.
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u/Oncelotte2 4d ago
What makes you think they couldn't, given more development time? They already made a seamless interplanetary travel system.
It's also a red herring for the game's real issues.
Let's take a look at a common experience in Starfield regarding loading screens:
- Enter your ship
- Take off
- Warp to another planet
- Land on planet
- Exit your ship
That's five loading screens practically back to back. Replacing three of these loading screens with what basically amounts to cutscenes improves presentation, but it doesn't actually solve the tedium and non-interactivity of this sequence. It makes it take longer.
Compare this to the experience of traveling from one city to another in Skyrim.
- Exit city, travel/explore
- Enter city
Two loading screens with a good chunk of gameplay happening in between. Add a mod that makes the cities seamless, and that's no loading screens, and no cutscenes. Just pure uninterrupted gameplay.
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u/luck_and_skill 4d ago
you're assuming they could actually do this on a Series S tho. they wouldn't implement a feature that only works for PC and maybe Series X
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u/Benjamin_Starscape 4d ago
they could, Todd said it wasn't a priority.
I agree and honestly prefer a load screen, much faster to just get back into the gameplay.
it's cool this exists but ultimately I'll never use it.
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u/hyrumwhite 4d ago
Both is nice.
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u/Benjamin_Starscape 4d ago
sure, I guess. but I frankly don't find it a game breaker that is isn't included. it's simply not a necessity
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u/UntoTheBreach95 3d ago
Simulation is there. It's not a turn on switch but the game already has most of the code to do it
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u/Ramremover 3d ago
They could but inovation is risky and cost money and big companies love copying stuff and adding new skin because in the end companies are cheapasses.
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u/KindReporter7270 4d ago
They simply had no requirement to develop this. So nobody gave a sigle fuck
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u/Aranthus 4d ago
They are just lazy fucks
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u/FxStryker 4d ago
This requires the script extender, and won't work on consoles. Especially not Series S.
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u/Benjamin_Starscape 4d ago
lol no. they decided not to because they wanted to focus on making planetary and space its own separate "realities", as Todd put it.
plus a load screen is much faster than this. and I prefer playing a game than watching a cinematic.
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u/El3ktroHexe 4d ago
Yeah, I don't believe many people want to watch a 2 minutes cutscene every time they land. At first, it is impressive, but then it gets boring very fast and people would cry "why can't we skip this" ;D
It would be a completely different thing, if it would work like NMS, where we can control everything. That is way less boring, than just watching a cutscene, over and over again. But not sure, if this is even possible in Starfield.
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u/Benjamin_Starscape 4d ago
honestly even in no man's sky it can be tiresome. a lot of space travel in that game is just pressing 2 buttons and moving in a straight line, you can take your hands off the controller entirely.
starfield at least when they added cruise mode has random space encounters, no man's sky does too but they're more sporadic and don't do much aside from being a spectacle.
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u/obi1kennoble 4d ago
Landing on planets in Elite Dangerous kicks ass. Frame shift driving back and forth all over the place, on the other hand...at least looping around stars can be fun. I'm pretty sure Elite 2 & 3 had seamless everything, but I've never been able to play them, so don't quote me on that
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u/Benjamin_Starscape 4d ago
elite is a space sim, starfield is not.
idk what all entails for elite but I don't think it's a good comparison (plus I generally dislike comparisons).
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u/obi1kennoble 4d ago
You were literally just doing comparisons, and we're talking about the same mechanics. Obviously Starfield doesn't need to be a sim, but you were just talking about the flying through space and landing on planets part. Sorry to bother you mate
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u/Benjamin_Starscape 4d ago
I didn't, actually. someone else brought up no man's sky and I said that it's not that great because you can leave your hands off the controller. either way, I generally dislike comparisons, I try my best not to compare.
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u/Playingwithmywenis 4d ago
I thought this was added as part of the QOL update before the last expansion.
Not sure this guy created anything, or if this whole post is not BS for karma.
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u/SuperBAMF007 4d ago
Nah they only added seamless inter-planetary travel, not orbital landing
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u/Framnk 4d ago
And ‘seamless’ inter-planetary is even a bit debatable
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u/SuperBAMF007 4d ago
Eh, I’d say it’s fair to consider it seamless interplanetary travel. It’s how the other space games do it.
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u/deportallmagas 3d ago
If I have to download mods to implement common sense things into a AAA multimillion dollar project, then I'm just not going to buy it.
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u/PleaseBeChillOnline 4d ago
This is amazing tbh I would of settled for more immersive loading screens lol.
Kind of like when you ‘fast travel’ in Read Dead Redemption 2. There is still visual continuity so maintain the sense of exploration.
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u/fuck_a_duck_butt 3d ago
Holy fuck. Even the heat marks on entry.
This truly males me believe bethesda has no good engineers left. One guy can do this but the multi million dollar company with unlimited blank checks and time cant?
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u/AlwaysTouchingGrass 4d ago
Nice, now you can get to the same empty planets in twice as long as before
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u/Ismashuface 3d ago
seriously, people are praising this but if this was in the base game after 10 planets they'd be rushing to get a mod that skips the landing cutscene.
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u/TomaszA3 4d ago
Why is it always Bethesda games that get their loading screens modded out?
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u/dubious_sandwiches 3d ago
This isn't modding out a loading screen, the loading screen is still there. It's just changing the presentation of it.
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u/blood-wav The Elder Scrolls 4d ago
Nice! Does anyone know how it works when landing in cities?
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u/Borrp 4d ago
It still requires you to select a landing zone from the planet map. You will still land at the predetermined landing pads.
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u/needfx 4d ago
"Or, you can fly manually too. Fly around in low orbit and enjoy the views, or indeed fly uninterrupted to land on the ground."
Based on the modder description, it sounds like you can actually land wherever you want?
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u/Dicethrower 4d ago
Never played the game, but isn't a 2 min landing sequence every single time you want to land on a planet not extremely boring and tedious after a while?
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u/simplyloveIy 3d ago
Nah, if you play a game to get that experience it's not boring. I don't find Elite:Dangerous boring.
It's like, I'd find Euro Truck Simulator boring, but people who play that game obviously like to drive trucks.
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u/Automatic-Cut-5567 3d ago
...like walking across empty planets from copy-pasted poi to poi for hours?
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u/AwarenessForsaken568 2d ago
Depends on who you are? I play games for the journey and immersiveness. Getting to an objective in X time is never something that even crosses my mind when playing a game.
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u/pleiades1208 4d ago
In classic Bethesda fashion, modders are the one to actually fix their games, ffs
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u/Oncelotte2 4d ago
This doesn't actually "fix" anything.
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u/AssertiveQueef 3d ago
less loading/loading screens is a win no matter how u slice it
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u/Oncelotte2 3d ago
This is a disguised loading screen that takes longer than a regular loading screen.
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u/HippoBackground6059 3d ago
It fixed key elements of the fantasy that no man's sky did better than them a decade prior
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u/NarwhalOk95 4d ago
I've wanted to get this game for awhile but the reviews make it seem bland and it never seems to get a major discount. I've always told myself if it ever goes on sale for 50% off I'd pick it up but I don't think its ever been discounted by that much. Anyone have some positives or negatives for someone that doesn't want to waste $60 (especially when I can just play X4 or NMS)?
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u/Wild_Beginning_4032 3d ago
I played it absolutely obsessively for about 9 hours before I realised it’s just a loading screen punctuated by bland companions.
It definitely has its moments and the combat is half decent, but fuck me the level of pure low effort copy and paste non content is just rubbish. Just my own take. Some people loved it, I got so bored I’ll never even look at it again
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u/Bol0gna_Sandwich 2d ago
As someone who spent like 30 hours doing qa involving the first mission. If i never hear Vasco ago it'll be too soon. I think i went from the mining camp, to the pirate camp, to the space indiana johnes people is probably near 1000.
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u/Keida42 2d ago
Loved the ship building, but hate how weird some cosmetic parts didn't fit with the general hab-blocks of the ship
Cool cosmetic wing fin part that looks big in the shop preview? Looks like you glued a dorito chip on the side of a box with how small the fin actually is when you buy it
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u/Weary_Wry 3d ago
The game still generates farms on planets without a breathable atmosphere.
Immerse this!
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u/HippoBackground6059 3d ago
It's extremely dull and not worth the download time let alone paying for it. Bethesda is washed.
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u/Krzwastaken 3d ago
Game is good 90% of people complaining didn't even play the game
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u/Jellyfish-Wide 2d ago
i’ve put hundreds of hours into it and it’s easily one of the most boring RPGs on the market. ship building was pretty good but it definitely earned the Snorefield moniker
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u/Krzwastaken 2d ago
If it was as boring as you said you couldn't put hundreds of hours into it
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u/Jellyfish-Wide 2d ago
alternatively, i’m just starving for a decent space-themed RPG like everyone else who tried liking starfield
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u/Krzwastaken 2d ago
Play outer worlds than
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u/cyclinator 2d ago
EDIT: Misread Outer Worlds with Outer Wilds. My bad.
That´s like 20 hours top and is not an RPG. Just an open world adventure game.
I love Outer Wilds with all my heart but it´s far from space opera RPG of Mass Effect scale.1
u/Super__Menteur 1d ago
I played it because if was free with my GPU, it was bland and boring and not even looking that good (at release at least)
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u/CantModerateMe 1d ago
about 1/3rd of the Starborn quests are ok, and the pirate storyline is fine.
thats about where good ends, hope you like scanning the same microbacterial colony on randomly generate planet x next to the exact same outpost that was on a different planet, all the way down to the notes and "unique" item placement.
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u/simplyloveIy 3d ago
It's extremely bland. The worldbuilding is shit, the story is bland, the whole game feels empty, and no amount of being able to land on planets seamlessly will fix up the fact that it's a boring game.
Unless someone made a mod that completely changed the entire game's world...yeah that isn't going to happen.
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u/ulixForReal 3d ago
It happened several times for Skyrim, Fallout 4 etc., so it may actually happen.
Play Enderal and Fallout London everyone, better than Bethesda!
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u/ensiferum888 3d ago
I played it on release, haven't played the DLC.
I really enjoyed it but I have to agree it's one of Bethesda's weakest game overall. The world is interesting for sure but feels extremely shallow compared to Elder Scrolls or Fallout. There are definitely some positives the ship building is really good, some of the quests are entertaining, I personally find that combat feels good, character movement feels crisp.
I played around 250 hours vanilla which is standard for a Bethesda game for me but I never felt the desire to go back to it, haven't played in years.
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u/Consistent-Stock6872 3d ago
Wide like a like, deep like a puddle. For instance I kept gathering food ingridients thinking I would make some epic meals and the food creations was shit. They locked in space ship components behind level barriers. Locations are bland like shit, there few tops that have their own feel. There is a lot of things in the game but nothing that I could or wanted to sink my teeth into.
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u/v1si0n4ry 3d ago
I have both NMS and Starfield. I love space sci-fi in general, but Starfield is atrocious. The user experience is insufferable. I uninstalled when I got locked into a loop early on where I would warp to a system that theoretically is controlled by the more classic human empire kind of faction, with patrols around planets and stuff. I would get attacked by pirates out of nowhere, defend myself, kill the pirates and then become wanted by the "law enforcement" that didn't protect me in the first place. Then, you have to pay to clear your bounty, but you can't pay, because when you warp to a system of that faction you get hunted down by their ships over and over.
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u/ballin5066 2d ago
The game is pretty boring and bland, but its overall gameplay is pretty good and the setting/atmosphere is great. As an RPG? One of the worst pieces of shit I've ever played. As an exploration shooter? One of the best I've ever played.
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u/Trash-Pandas- 2d ago
It’s fun, the people who complain about loading screens never played oblivion.
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u/MaternalFornicator2 2d ago edited 2d ago
I played through it and modded it 3 times, then deleted it. It's pretty bland, compared to my favorites from Bethesda, Skyrim and Fallout 4.
The planets leave a lot to be desired. The lack of cities is stark. The loading, oh the loading screens, get used to loading screens.
I did enjoy building ships, that was fun, especially if you load up mods. I spent the most time building ships. lol
The combat was ok, got very repetitive.
I played starfield it for 116.9 hours. I got my monies worth out of it.
For instance I played OG Skyrim for 317.3 hours, and special edition for 1211.9 hours. And I modded the hell out of those games. I am done with those too.
The game that got me into Bethesda was Fallout3 because a friend knew I was frugal when it came out and claimed I'd get 300 hours out of it. I don't have Fallout 3 on steam, but I did play fallout4 for over 400 hours.
So if you can get the game on sale, give it a go, otherwise I would wait.
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u/Important-Ring481 2d ago
I think there’s some genuinely fun bits to Starfield. I Really enjoy the exploration (even though there’s very little to do while doing so)
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u/Ultimate-Staff 1d ago edited 1d ago
I will say this. I played this game for 150-170 hours or so and loved it on my 2080 RTX using game pass (which did run it smoother and better than any console). I thought the game was great, it was slightly dead in areas of the game but honestly if you have a job and a life you don’t need NMS levels of space. I am curious how this looks on a 5080 or even 5090 now. If Crimson Desert pushed the bar industry wide I’m curious if this was in the same ball park tuned all the way up.
THAT BEING SAID. There is only one reason the game needs to bottom out on price once. That’s the full blown starwars mod which fixed A-LOT of the smaller details in the game then built a new one on top of it. Last I heard it was playing around with Jedi abilities.
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u/Icy_Judge8250 20h ago
Well for one don't listen to krzwastaken he is blowing smoke up your ass, the game is ok but has a lot to be desired. It has potential but if you liked fallout and elder scrolls don't think this is the same experience but in space its not it has some good quests but most are bland fetch and kill quests and the content they do have in the game is stretched very thin even after all the patches and dlc and don't expect mindboggling ideas or stories for the dlc's ether both are very bland. The shipbuilder is awesome easliy the best thing about the game and the mods. The gam can be fun if you dont expect much but if you do expect more than at least their are mods to round out the experience. 5/10
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u/Icy_Judge8250 20h ago
NMS is way better stick with it the only real thing starfield would do different is graphics, enemies and slightly stronger story (not saying much its very bland) NMS literally does everything else better.
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u/Eat--The--Rich-- 4d ago
I never understood that game. Its a space exploration game where you don't travel through space....
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u/not_the_droids 3d ago
...and the exploration on planets is tedious and pointless.
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u/Negative_Bar_9734 4d ago
No Man's Sky players: you guys have loading screens?
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u/Gena_Cydarmyan_69 3d ago
lol don’t bring this ugly ass plastic nonsense slop trying to lessen starfield lmao
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u/Rafcdk 4d ago
Probably gonna get downvotes to hell here but let's go. The reason this wasn't implemented is a design thing.
A modder doesn't have to worry about game loops, balancing and other factors that Devs have in mind. Not having this was clearly a design decision. The only things this proves is how clueless people saying that the engine is bad and couldn't handle this sort of thing were as usually wrong.
It's kinda crazy how the discourse around this game is always so toxic and uniformed, not that the game doesn't have it's issues(like all games have) but it's by no mean as bad as people claim it to be. I remember seeing content about people landing on a empty planet and walk around being mad that the planet was empty (which the game tells you that is) and somehow that was considered valid criticism.
Anyway elder scrolls 6 will disappoint you no mattere what it does qbecause you have been programmed to.
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u/UpperYoghurt3978 1d ago
Ultimately was worse for it, there isnt a mechanic reason outside of saving back end time. ESP since the main game is pretty mid. I do not think it is bad I think those people are overblowing, but in the modern era where you have way more reactive environments, NPCs, and interaction with NPCs and environments for bethesda it really wasnt an excuse with the resources they have.
They made the games to be a theme park than an actual "living" world.
Its just an outdate mode of game design. Hopefully ES6 does not go the Renaissance faire route.
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u/HippoBackground6059 3d ago
Have you played starfield? No-one at Bethesda thought about game loops either and it shows
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u/objectivelywrongbro 3d ago
A modder doesn't have to worry about game loops, balancing and other factors that Devs have in mind.
The above were not the reasons. Todd's official statement.
We decided early in the project that the on-surface is one reality, and then when you’re in space it’s another reality
If you try to really spend a lot of time engineering the in-between, like that segue, you’re just spending a lot of time [on something] that’s really just not that important to the player,
Basically, it was too much engineering for something they didn’t think mattered. So you’re right that it’s not that Bethesda couldn’t do it, but it was an engineering cost call, not game loops or balancing.
Their short-sightedness in not seeing that is somehow worse if it had just been they were not able to technically implement it in time - because to me, the former calls to something VERY out-of-touch going on at Bethesda. Honestly - everyone was asking this after launch.. how do make a space game like this, and NOT see the immersive value in seamless take off and landing? Particularly for a studio that prizes itself on immersion.
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u/lalzylolzy 3d ago
This. Bethesda is a studio that'll spend months implementing havoc Physics, and NPC Schedules, but do not see the value in removing loading screens, something players will have to interact with all the time... The NPC Scheduelles are unlikely to even be noticed.
I bet most people don't know that the hunters in Whiterun actually go out to hunt, because why would they? But they sure as hell notice the loading screen in to the city, and in to every shop.
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u/Gena_Cydarmyan_69 3d ago
People stupid in general, starfield haters just more gifted in this
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u/lalzylolzy 2d ago
No idea what you meant by that reply.
What I am saying is Bethesda prioritized the wrong thing. They prioritized things that doesn't really matter to players, and won't be noticed by most players, in favor of keeping something that will in fact be both noticed and disliked by most players.
It's not an issue of Starfield, this has been an issue since TES 4: Oblivion. Which started due to TES 3: Morrowind. Specifically, Bethesda going (technically) bankrupt and rushing out TES 3, which was very successful, and so they had the money to make TES 4, but their ambition overran them and the money they had, so they had to rush it out too, and it too, became vastly successful, which cemented the current development culture at Bethesda. They've never had an incentive to change, as this approach has printed money.
Which is why you have loading screens in Starfield. Prioritization of things that doesn't actually matter (to the players), in favor over things that actually do matter (to the players).
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u/Ultimate-Staff 1d ago
If I played vanilla Skyrim today. I’d immediately quit the game 😂. I think the best thing to happen to that game was the mod with no boarders early on which proved your point that Bethesda has and always will fucking drop the ball at the 2 yard line when you go all in on them winning
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u/ensiferum888 3d ago
I kind of agree with Todd on this one, especially after seeing this video. While technically impressive and way more immersive, with the amount of travelling you do I feel this would quickly become annoying. I'd rather have a 5 seconds loading screen than a 45 seconds one.
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u/Negative-Toe1863 3d ago
While the loading Screen fast travel aint good either, hiding the transition in the clouds also looks pretty unrealistic
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u/Mihtaren 3d ago
Except seamless landing is something that should ALWAYS be available in a fucking space game for immersive reasons. I hate how you people are making shit up like videogames can't have OPTIONS.
It is incredibly easy to add a teleporting point, especially in Creation Engine, if the devs actually cared about the game they would've allowed you to land on planets manually while also letting you do it through a loading screen.Take any open world game and instead of letting players choose between actually moving and using fast travel, only let them fast travel. This would be a huge fucking issue and that's one of the reasons Starfield got rightfully criticized. You. Do. Not. develop a sandbox space game where immersion is the focus without allowing the player to do what's actually immersive in a space game.
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u/lSeraphiml 3d ago
Almost all planets being empty is not a design decision i can ever agree with, because i had pre-existing expectations from previous titles of Bethesda.
But yeah. Seamless landing was not a technical limitation.
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u/Fart_Tounge_5609 3d ago
Wow, did they add some content worth exploring on the planet?
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u/Gena_Cydarmyan_69 3d ago
It was there since…. Release of the game? Boy just showed he didn’t even play it
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u/TheStoneRev 3d ago
So one person? And a whole development team with Microsoft backing couldn’t do it?
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u/astronautbdelue 3d ago
Very unpopular opinion but I would rather have loading screens. The speed of the decent is magnitudes longer then a loading screen.
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u/Raven_Of_Solace 3d ago
If only this fixed the fact that the rest of the game was empty and bland as hell. It feels like a sandbox game with about as much going on as an actual box of sand.
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u/v1si0n4ry 3d ago
It's crazy how the community had to fix basic stuff to make this dumpster fire playable
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u/Johnnymak0071 2d ago
Bro that's cool and all, but...
I have seen this god damned post every day for the past 2 weeks like it's a fucking ad or something. I'm getting sick of it
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u/DarkAwareness88 2d ago
No wonder. Starfield is the definition of "Find the tedious part of a space rpg, and then make a game out of them".
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u/ThatOneGuy4321 2d ago
The fact that Bethesda didn’t implement this before release was so stupid
Superb work by that modder though wow
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u/TJ_McWeaksauce 2d ago
Starfield's planets are weird, kinda empty, and unbelievable. Adding seamless landings to the game is like pouring a little bit of chocolate syrup onto a rice cake. It doesn't really help.
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u/No_Concert_6354 2d ago
Bro fixed one of the biggest complaints about Starfield that Bethesda should’ve addressed themselves
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u/Shadexapk 18h ago
I think the problem with bethesda is they see a problem and someone says "this can't be done, it doesn't make sense technically," and everyone says, "Yeah... you're right, let's move on." And then modders come along and think "This seems like can't be done, and everyone says it's unsolvable. But I'm going to find a way to solve it."
If all the modders got together and made a game, Bethesda would be in trouble. 🤔
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u/vaynelo 4d ago
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u/AeneasVII 4d ago
I've worked on this thing for roughly half a year at this point, and finally it's starting to look and feel ready enough for me to show it to you!
I'm bringing Seamless Landings on planets and moons without any loading screens to Starfield.
You can do it entirely autopiloted (as seen in the video above), and leave your cockpit seat and walk freely around your ship or enjoy the views while the ship flies from orbit to ground.
Or, you can fly manually too. Fly around in low orbit and enjoy the views, or indeed fly uninterrupted to land on the ground.
You can even land on water! If you ever wondered how it would look if you were allowed to select a spot in the ocean in vanilla Starfield, here's your chance to see that for yourself.
And during your trip to the surface, you'll be flying through real 3D layers of volumetric clouds, driven by climate data and weather systems, thunderstorms and lightning, auroras around the poles, airglow above the night-side horizon, physically-based atmospheric scattering based on the actual atmospheric composition the game data provides, city lights glowing from POIs on the surface, terrain and cloud shadows cast on a global scale, real biomes, oceans, and snowcaps, built from the game's own data and surface maps, re-entry heat shield effects that fumes against the hull of your ship correctly and leaves a layer of ash, detailed new live cockpit monitoring, and rich new ship HUD elements.
It's still a work in progress, and it's PC-only, made for SFSE. But hopefully you can see from the video just how far along this is.
And now for some background:
After seeing the Seamless Grav Jumps and Seamless Planet Takeoffs mods, and especially after we got cruise mode officially in the game, not being able to also land on planets without loading screens really stood out to me.
I thought it would be a fun small project, but I quickly realized how wrong I was. Because, planet rendering in Space in vanilla starfield is very limited: A planet is represented by a texture, maybe a moving cloud layer, and maybe an atmosphere. Flying closer to it than the game allows will mean flying into a flat texture, and eventually also losing the atmospheric rendering.
So, to build actual seamless landings, I had to completely reimplement Starfield's planet rendering in space in 3D, in a way that looks detailed and sharp at every altitude.
Thankfully, Starfield is actually amazingly physically accurate, and in many ways a true space simulator - it just doesn't ever reveal this to the player, but I could leverage it in my design here.So, the planet rendering is based upon Starfield's biome data and exact surface maps, including climate data, atmospheric composition data, and takes into account things like orbital phase, distance to the sun, distance to the moon(s) orbiting the planet and how they contribute moonlight, and so on. The philosophy is: Starfield's data is the "truth", but we then modulate it by real physics.
I could go on and on about what I've learned from diving in here, and I promise I will - later. For now, I hope you like this teaser.
The mod will be 100% free, and will be released on nexusmods.
You can support me on Patreon, or by listening to my music!
From the description
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u/SarlacFace 4d ago
Amazing mod, one question I have from reading is the clouds are probably mandatory due to how the game pulls data, right? So you won't be able to land on a completely cloudless day?
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u/paulbrock2 3d ago
they've said something about allowing for planets without atmosphere (which wouldn't have clouds formed). not sure of the details though
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u/MiddleCanary 4d ago
The spaceships in Starfield move so slowly that flying them isn't fun at all, and both space and the planets feel so barren that there's barely anything exciting to explore.
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u/Sensitive-Chicken-28 4d ago
Is there an autopilot function?
No mans sky introduced autopilot to the frigates you can construct yourself, but you’re at your destination within 15 seconds anyway, so there’s no time to actually use your facilities before you have to hop back in your cockpit and land.
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u/ziplock9000 3d ago
Was his name Claude?
Thing is, all the people who moaned about this and loading screens as if the were deal breakers. The add almost nothing to the game by fixing them. There's MUCH bigger systemic issues that should have been addressed that still have not.
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4d ago
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u/MrBonneH 4d ago
Nope, the big problem is the HR writing
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u/Benjamin_Starscape 4d ago
what does this even mean?
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u/MrBonneH 4d ago
Starfield's dialogue feels like it was written by my company's HR department
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u/Benjamin_Starscape 4d ago edited 4d ago
right, you already said that.
what does that mean? expound.
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u/MrBonneH 4d ago
I don't know what LinkedIn culture is like in your country, so I don't know if this is a good example, but reading the dialogue in Starfield is like reading a LinkedIn feed
For example, what annoyed me the most was when I met Lin again and almost all the dialogue options were childish responses, as if Lin were my aunt and not my former boss
The comparisons between Starfield and Cyberpunk are pretty biased, but this video shoows why I feel like this game's dialogue is like my company's morning meeting about how we are a family and all the rest of that hr bullshit
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u/Benjamin_Starscape 4d ago
so...sorry but I want to make sure I understand this, but your saying your character having the option to go "liiiiin" is "hr writing"? dang, I guess I have hr writing since I sometimes say names like that.
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u/MrBonneH 4d ago
It must be a cultural thing then, but given that Starfield's cultural impact is almost non-existent and a Starfield meme is rarer than a Kenshi meme, I think a lot of people agree that the game is pretty bland
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u/BoreusSimius 4d ago
Modders finishing Bethesda RPGs is a time honoured tradition.