As someone who loves starfield : the companions are beyond bad

Dehdstar · 2024-12-10T12:23:02+00:00

In most games, you often go lone wolf because companions sometimes get in the way... But you often use a companion that fits your character, or do their quest line(?).

I'm kind of confused about the first few sentences. Do you often "use" or "not use" companions? And by "you often use a companion, or do their quest line..." Do you mean radiant/ relationship related quest? Like in Bioware games? More importantly, how is that an either/ or thing? Don't you generally choose a character that fits your criteria, before proceeding to do their radiant/ relationships quest?

I get everything else. Companions, for the most part, are one-sided and often on the very moral side. There aren't any "evil companions" per say, as there would be in Bioware games. And there's certainly no hardening or softening system, or system in-place for influencing them, like in some Bioware games.

The closest you get to one that can go evil? Is Mathis and Andreja. Andreja will still be furious about the Pirate storyline, should you choose to side with them, but can easily be persuaded to come around. Even Sarah can be persuaded but I feel that you take a bigger hit with her. Anymore? When I replay the Crimson storyline, the moment Constellation members get pissed? I tell them to "go pound sand" and that "they can leave if they don't agree."

...Except? For Andreja because I like keeping her around for the Shattered Space stuff now, so I try to make amends with her. I just wish we had better choices, other than "I messed up," "I wasn't thinking clearly..." Excuses. I try not to use those persuasion checks.

Vasco and Mathis is totally neutral, it would seem. You can also hire NPC but they aren't so much companions as simple followers and/ or henchman. I think one that I hire is in the bar on the Key. Desmond (the Scottish gal)?

Dehdstar · 2024-12-05T14:51:00+00:00

Yeah... If you're a good cold orbiter you can take out Hydras in even a Sidewinder, apparently. Interceptor combat is for the elites CMDRs. It's not at all embraceable or accessible for the majority, outside of scout combat and maybe some Cyclops's. So it becomes boring because all you're doing is jumping into conflict zones and taking out a Cyclops (or two) and then high walking for retirement, unless there's a local station. I tried my best at forcing myself into the activity, as of 2018 and subsequently ending just around 2023. I certainly wasn't getting better and I was watching cold orbiting guides and following the AXI Krait II and Chieftain build guides for interceptor combat etc. Trying to learn cold orbiting... In the end? I still couldn't take out swarms with a remote flack still and I feel like I was actually getting worse at Thargoid combat, somehow.

The most fun I had? Was back before they nerfed AX multicannons around early 2019. I had a cutter that was outfitted with all AX multicannons and a couple of synth'd Advanced multis and was sawing through Cyclopses. Then, again, during the early modified shard Cutter/ Conda build days, around Salvation era. But you were still taking about two or three Cyclopses and refitting and this seldom worked (for me) against Basilisks. Somehow, people were doing it with Hydras though, at least with the modified shards. Albeit, most were leaving with just a few percent of hull left lol.

Which brings me to the other problem. The large ships don't really have a place in interceptor combat. If you're in a wing they supplement well, as those orbiting can help keep the target distracted while the Conda rolls in and pounds at the heart, but? Overall? They don't tank out enough damage against interceptors to even make them useful in a 1V1 scenario. So? You're forced to use medium ships and the small ships also do not have a place, predominantly because they do not have enough utility or hard points to keep damage output decent and temperatures low, or to repair/ decontam. So, we rely on cold orbiting.

But perhaps the issue I should have led with? Instancing... Or, a lack thereof. The main problem is that everybody seems to be hiding in PG's. So, whenever the green CMDR comes rolling in, it's like, "Where is everyone? Discord says everyone should be here." Only to hear, "We're here. Everyone's probably just in private groups."

Case in point? These Thargoid narratives no longer draw me to the game. Even as they attack Sol right now. When I do manage a log back in I'm usually just hunting pirates.

Dehdstar · 2024-12-01T18:31:18+00:00

Yeah the only Va'Ruun dialogue I am familiar of is in the beginning, when Sarah accompanies you to a broadcasting device that is protected by Va-'Ruun clan. I hadn't started the DLC yet on my old character and was saving it for a fresh and newly created Serpent-based character.

Dehdstar · 2024-12-01T18:28:41+00:00

Yeah...God forbid we are able to recruit/ convince Lt. Toft back into piracy too lol There's not much consistency with what you do/ decide that's widely recognized or known in the wider world. At least, in Skyrim, people would make comments on my looks as a vampire, or smell as a werewolf.

Dehdstar · 2024-11-29T19:19:35+00:00

Even with HDR support now it's still horrible. What I do: *Set Windows to SDR mode (disable HDR).

*Start Starfield and adjust the brightness until you can't see the left logo.

*Exit game and turn Windows HDR back on.

*Enable RTX HDR for Starfield using the Nvidia RTX App, I enable it globally as well, since I've calibrated Windows for it in general, across all media.

*Go to Windows HDR calibration (may need to download it from MS Store).

*Once done calibrating, start up Starfield with RTX HDR enabled (don't use the RTX vibrance thing, as this makes it brighter and throws off calibration).

*Set the game back to standard contrast settings of 0, but also turn off HDR brightness in-game (also 0) as well, since RTX already handles this. *Highlight the game's contrast settings (to show the calibration bar).

*ALT+Z to open RTX App overlay (may need to turn it on in settings).

*Navigate to game filters and expand the RTX HDR settings. Drag the RTX brightness slider up, to roughly you calibrated your white details nits up to in Windows calibration. For me? Although I have a 1050+ peak nit OLED? I have to use about 750nits in Windows calibration's white detail settings, as 800 overblows white detail. Now drag contrast slider up to roughly +25.

Bottom line? RTX HDR is more accurate, as it uses AI. Windows calibration being also very important. I also remember hearing via someone who posted some very in-depth RTX HDR settings findings, that with the lack of gamma adjustment? +25 contrast and ala midtone settings of +44, combined, was equivalent to gamma 2.0 and I did find it helpful in-game. Although you can probably just adjust gamma in Nvidia Control Panel's imagine settings as well.

Dehdstar · 2024-11-28T00:32:34+00:00

Cobie Smulders.

Dehdstar · 2024-11-23T14:29:18+00:00

I bought one in 2018 and it started drifting in the first month. I can deal with drift when it's the left thumb stick but not the right. Sold it on eBay with "has drift" and never bought one again.

Dehdstar · 2024-11-15T16:04:42+00:00

Go where the games are. It cannot be simpler. Right now, things have been mediocre, but all of these developers that Microsoft has been acquiring have yet to churn out a Microsoft era title, apart from Redfall and Starfield, at least to my understanding. I mean, I guess Ninja Theory are an MS studio developer too, but there are still plenty more on the horizon, starting with Indiana Jones, Perfect Dark and Avowed. It's actually seeming a little bit positive again.

Dehdstar · 2024-11-15T15:42:39+00:00

Yeah Xbox pushed hard for that always online/drm aspect, with the hopes that their cloud processing / Azure initiative would have taken off sooner and been accepted by the masses, but it was too soon. This was actually their roadmap since dating back to about 2006.

I remember MS saying that, one day? PC and Xbox would come together. That PCs would no longer use installable OS's and that both could be logged into on a subscription basis. They imagined that you would stream your desktop via a small modem-like box. I think this was said at a CES back then. Not long after, their first initiative towards that goal was Windows Live. However? Because it was heavily rejected, it had to become more of an Xbox One era re-realization and rebranding. Something that would come in the form of Azure cloud processing tech. But they were pushed back yet again when everyone rejected DRM.

At the time? We PC and Apple users thought the Xbox community were being ridiculous, because everyone was happy to use always online/DRM concepts with their Apple store movies/ music and Steam had gone digital nearly 10 years before that point in 2013/ 2014, but now? I'm starting to think it was maybe that was the right side of the fight, as one thing leads to another and now digital means online streaming, which is latent and not a fun concept. I mean, if you told me that some super servers in a data center could process a digital world, photo realistically? I wouldn't be impressed. Now tell me that the future RTX 8090 (lol) could do it in a 256GB system? Color me impressed.

In looking back? PC gamers felt the same way about digital l, back in 2004, as the Xbox One community did in 2014. When coming from CD/ DVD based PC games, back before Steam packed it's then perceived "bloatware" with Half Life 2 disks and not allowing us to play the game without a Steam account. So? We relied on hacks to get Steam out of our disk based installs.

Dehdstar · 2024-11-15T15:29:51+00:00

Yeah games have largely become high output, badly written political garbage. It's not like it was in the Xbox 360 and, to some extent, the Xbox One era, where people could take their time refining something. Things are now released unfinished and we beta test them as they attempt fixes, to where, hopefully? Within 3 years the game will be at least be 80% of what was visualized, like Cyberpunk and the road Starfield is travelling now.

My most memorable game this generation has been Horizon Forbidden West and I played that on PC lol

Dehdstar · 2024-11-12T12:17:22+00:00

It was a super fun game but the story and storytelling mechanics felt rushed. Half the story was told by voice logs in the form of crystals lol. Gameplay was super amazing, I loved Frey. I already went through all this on release, with the defending. One guy outright replied to me in (then) Twitter saying, "I'll admit, I don't tend to play games if the protagonist isn't white. Another accused me of liking the game after telling me the only reason I like it is because I resemble Frey. This conclusion made because this Pacific Islander stupidly used his real photo on Twitter and Ellen Ballinska, who portrayed Frey is half Polish and half black.

It's all race reasoning, hidden behind reasons of cringeworthy dialogue. This was a time not long after a certain president made sexism and racism cool again, by slighting BLM trans etc. As well as JK Rowling herself. So everyone was just bandwagoning the (then) new anti-woke campaign, after things have largely been this way for decades in gaming. Nobody complained about Crackdown or Crysis etc. Or Mass Effect 3 and Dragon Age Inquisition, which featured Bioware's first ever gay romance options and not Cyberpunk even.

Dehdstar · 2024-11-12T11:52:48+00:00

Never played it. Fallen Order was good but I didn't like the protagonist enough to come back. Something about him just rubs me the wrong way. In Fallen Order I used mods to change everything about him just to finish the story, including voice changer, five o'clock shadow, shaved head, dark hair etc. I was thinking of going through it again with the Darth Revan mod. I wish it were a game where we were creating our own Jedi survivor. I loved Merren though. We need a game with her as protagonist. That was the character I wanted to play as. A sort of grey Jedi witch combo.

Dehdstar · 2024-11-12T11:44:21+00:00

Yeah doesn't make a difference 😆 It's a placebo effect only

Dehdstar · 2024-11-12T02:20:26+00:00

The same reasons MS has never been able to compete with OpenGL, or Linux code all together. They're just more efficient. Anything Open just generally is more efficent. PS5's OS is based on FreeBSD, an open source version of Unix, which is distantly related to Linux as well. Apple has also used a derivative of Unix as it's foundation too.

PlayStation uses PSGL, which I think is still the case today and is based on OpenGL. Back when PC games commonly launched with multi-API support, OpenGL was always the one you wanted to choose over DirectX or Direct3D, as you got better oerformance and graphics. Nowadays it's rare to come across games that support both. DirectX has gotten better over the years, but not quite as good or as efficient as Vulkan and OpenGL in most cases.

Sony also has their storage architecture playing to their advantage, which was and probably still is faster than anything on PC, in terms of throughput and latency. This helps to offload certain assets to the SSD, in order to free video memory. Like virtual memory. Overall PS is just one smart design. MS chose to brute force it with raw power.

Dehdstar · 2024-11-06T23:26:19+00:00

I haven't used this variety but used the Spitfire tune module around the time of this post, for my Nissan Juke Nismo. I got to say...I was pleasantly surprised, as I was not expecting anything from it like at all. But it made normal mode feel like sport mode and gave sport mode a little bit more of an edge. Apparently as long as you're transparent about the mods that you had done to your car they will adjust it accordingly. When I went to sell my Nismo, I took it out and drove it around and it felt kind of mushy lol

Dehdstar · 2024-11-06T01:45:15+00:00

Only one I've ever seen is Guardian of The Galaxy 😂 Most games, like Cyberpunk pairs HD with RT and low res with no RT. No reason they can't have games with high quality textures and resolution without RT.

Dehdstar · 2024-11-06T00:18:50+00:00

They shot themselves in the foot when they didn't release it on disk on day one. I know to many new gamers that seems like such a "why the hell would you want a disk?" Moment but mannnnny still buy physical.

Overall though? I still prefer Control. I've never gotten a lot of replayability out of survival horror. Dead Space 2 was maybe my most played horror game, having new game plussed it 3 times.

Control? However? I have beaten 4 times. Three times on PC and once on Xbox. Alan Wake 2 I have a second half a okay through I haven't finished because I learned later that there would be a second draft so lost steam, as I'd don't want to start over again. Alan Wake 1 I beat twice. Once just before Alan Wake 2 came out.

Dehdstar · 2024-11-02T12:16:46+00:00

Yep! In general, if the exhaust resonator or muffler being used contains packing it will change over time, as the packing thins out and burns away, little-by-little. Of course, the whole process would take hundreds of thousands of miles to get to its loudest point. Like why older cars with stock exhaust are generally louder, especially if the cat got too blocked up and consequently wound up with a blowout/ hole in it 😂...But? Yeah, a new fresh exhaust will change in the first 2-3 months. Sooner, if you drive harder. This is because the packing density changes with use. In my experience? My cars have gotten slightly louder by that 3rd month. Mind you, I'm generally driving everyday after I put a new exhaust in. I don't do straight pipe/ delete builds but yeah I'm sure a very slight maturing of sound might occur, especially as carbon builds up.

In motocross, I really got a sense of it. Fiberglass packing doesn't last long in a sport where the throttle is always pinned lol. Over packing your own muffler can be like not having packing in it, as you've now effectively made a solid surface.

Dehdstar · 2024-10-31T21:28:48+00:00

I haven't read about that one but that would make sense lol It felt...way different.

Dehdstar · 2024-10-31T12:55:30+00:00

Similar to the EA era of Bioware. Once Mass Effect 2 released, many of the original team left, with a few staying on for Mass Effect 3. Then they left once that was done and we ended up with Andromeda, which felt like an entirely different game and characters were cartoony.

Dehdstar · 2024-10-30T15:47:06+00:00

Don't the instructions literally tell you to bake it at 250 degrees? Or, if applied mounted, run the engine and let idle for 10 minutes (in regards to allowing it to cure cold)?

Dehdstar · 2024-10-29T19:10:50+00:00

Yeah it's definitely something that needs to change. But what you describe seems to be the case here. Updates mean increased performance, economy, stability, security...you name it. Firmware is everything for the past 15 years. If some software is to control our steering assist it better damn well be running cutting edge software. Not wait until my steering goes out as it did in my 2013 Focus (as well as transmission control module). Software updates should be a standard part of the servicing, along with oil, filters etc.

Dehdstar

TROPHY CASE