No, multiple of the core skill trees are flat out broken.
You can invest skill points in outpost building, only to eventually realize that they give you no way of even building flat ground.
You can invest skill points in stealth, only to eventually realize that the stealth mechanics are either utterly bugged out and broken, or if working as intended, were designed by a sadist who hates stealth games.
You can invest skill points in unarmed combat, only to very quickly realize that there is flat out no quick way of going unarmed.
And through these and several other broken skill tree paths, you can learn that there is never any way to respec and you're stuck having wasted skill points in cool sounding stuff that is actually useless. There are aspects of this game that are fundamentally broken.
Ah, sorry master reader, I'm trying to read your words but my skills are clearly not enough for this high level text. All I see on my screen is "someone disagreed with my opinion so I'm throwing personal attacks on them because I feel invalidated".
Starfield isn't even mid, it's abyssmal. The sheer embarrassment of the fact that they spent hundreds of millions of dollars making it should make them reconsider their career and life choice.
No. No it isn't. It has worse space exploration than a game from 2016(NMS), worse inventory management than Minecraft, and an unnecessary amount of loading screens that haven't been seen since Borderlands 1.
I hate defering to review scores, but most reviews agree despite some issues it is a pretty good game. Everyone I know who's played it in real life is enjoying it despite the issues. I'm not saying you enjoyed it as you clearly didn't, but your experience clearly isn't universal.
I gave it about 55 minutes before I realized I wasn't having fun, and had no desire to continue hoping it would get better(Then I hopped on the real GOTY, Battlebit Remastered). I also went in blind and had no expectations other than "fallout set in space".
I also hate referring to review scores but if we're going off of that metric then my Friend Pepa Pig is truly a great work of art, right next to God of War.
I'll write a thesis and put in hundreds of hours next time I decide to try and play a bad game just to appease some random internet people, sure.
I didn't enjoy the gun fights, the space fights, the fast traveling, or any of the characters so why would I continue to play something I find unenjoyable and bland.
I'm not going to spend my limited gaming time hoping something gets better just so I can shitpost on the internet.
I didn't buy it, I have a couple months left on my Game pass Ult sub so it was "free". I also like those themes but didn't enjoy the implementation in this game.
I didn't say it had a good story, I said it had better space exploration. Being able to actually land on a moon or planet in the system you are in VS fast travel and loading screens is vastly different.
I didn't listen to the hype either, and was sucked in for like 70 hours, but knowing that >!the universe I'm in is gonna cease to exist as part of the main storyline!< makes it impossible for me to care about any of it. Why would I >!try to finish a side mission or make an outpost or build a ship if it's all gonna be wiped away in a few hours? Why would I finish the game if it means wiping all of that away?!< Why would I play the game if I want to not finish it? There's a fundamental disconnect there that kills my motivation to play
I noticed that while I was playing, before discovering how the game "ends," that I was at least keeping myself occupied, if I wasn't even really having all that much fun. Mostly, I was idly ticking boxes.
Once I learned about the end game, all motivation to play disappeared. Why waste my time ship building, outpost building, doing anything at all if I'm just going to have to start over? But I can't even change my skill points, so I'm stuck with ever-increasing amounts of XP just to get new skills.
It could have been made so much better if instead of >!wiping universes, it just added them, and you could jump between them at will.!< It would probably make the game much larger to account for >!potentially ten sets of ten custom ships, ten sets of 27 outposts, and 10 sets of NPC interactions to keep track of,!< but at least it wouldn't piss off anyone who's spent more than a few hours building the perfect ship or finding that mythical 7 resource outpost
No, and I see your point. You've given me a better understanding of my own position. It's not that it isn't worth doing things in a temporary universe (that's what we're doing right now, actually), it's that I'm actually just not having fun with the journey. I've built essentially the same outpost a dozen times in FO4 because it's fun. I've landed on the MĂĽn in KSP a thousand times with essentially the same ship because it's fun. I've played through the thieves guild and Dark Brotherhood questlines in Oblivion on every character I've played because they're fun, regardless of the fact that I know that eventually I'm going to drop this character and play as a new one. The difference is that I'm having fun with the process in those other games, and I'm not having fun with the process in Starfield.
Edit: but also, it is the temporary aspect of the universe that's the problem. Part of the core gameplay loop is to destroy your progress. That's fundamentally disconnected from the gameplay aspects of completing side quests and building things. We're talking about a video game, not real life.