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This is a collection of Reddit posts on the same subject coming at the same
thing from two different angles:
1 Bethesda's probable motives in Starfield game design,
and what I wish they'd done differently
1 Difficulty scaling in Starfield, problems from it, potential alternate paths
2026-03-26 Bethesa motives in Starfield game design, versus mine
I have some theories about Bethesda's motives:
- No full-strip looting to keep the credits loop viable and meaningful for
longer
- No crafting gear from scratch, or gear perk recycling, so that you need
to change and adapt play to weapons you find, as well as keeping gear
finds meaningful
- No sub-orbital flight because nosediving to land is just a fantasy sci-fi
trope that would compromise immersion in the game
- No realistic space combat, but rather a 3D version of 1850s naval combat
because, hey, players like it
- No physical objects through the Unity (pre 2026-03) supports found gear
changing player direction in NG+, prevents the starting systems from
being completely threatless from the outset, and the lack of credits
achieves the same ends for ships
- No carrying Essence through the Unity, because it would make it too
easy to just obliterate enemies freshly out of NG+
- No way to make ammo from (total) scratch may force a player to switch
weapon more often, instead of always using the favored one
- No weapons provided at the start of NG+
The latter four would have played well with these aspects Starfield does
not have:
- No health increase from level, just from Skill and through gear-based
damage-resistance
- No scaling of the universe (NPC levels, gear) to match player level
- Enemy tactics, instead, are scaled to player level
Together, all those would have meant that a Starborn would have started
in essentially the same level of threat in the new universe, except for
Powers and the starborn armor suit, generally seen as a mid-game armor set.
Being unable to create gear, or keep past gear, the player would be back to
low-damage weapons that are still a threat, except for the starborn
armor.
My theory is that this might have been a real consideration by Bethesda
about how the game should work. An honest reset arriving in the new
universe, except for a suit strong enough to keep you alive to the Unity,
and a ship perfect suited to jumping everywhere needed without effort
to make that path easier. A vulnerable starborn with a choice of whether
to just jump to the next universe or actually gear up and camp in the
current one. A choice of re-gearing from tier 1 items, or to take the more
dangerous option of jumping to high level systems and gear up to high tier
quickly.
To me, health scaling by level and scaling the universe to match the player
both clash with the idea of a most-similar universes loop. I feel like the
clash might have arisen of a perceived demand for the RPG trope of
level=health (more or less), and the scaling the universe is a side effect
to cope with the trope.
So, while I find Starfield to be great entertained as it is, I think I
would have enjoyed it more if:
- It had the additional aspects I mentioned
- NPCs and other aspects of the world were deterministically procgenned
differently for each specific universe
The first thing I did in NG+1 a couple of years ago was walk into the
Jemison Mercantile to discover what the counter girl's new look would be. I
was met with disappointment. Exactly the same. What I wanted was for
each universe to be recognizable through its differences:
- NPCs look different
- The would be specific gear and other items specific to some universes
- A few universe-specific quests, even small ones
- Slightly changed company or faction names, or trademark colors
- The Purple Pirates would have been hilarious :-)
- A Skill that can only be added in a certain universe (by which one, or by
NG+ count)
- Some quests or unlocks that could only be solved with information from
two universes
- Like a way to unlock CredTanks from early on
I don't think anyone is going to call any of those bad, or inconsistent
with the theme.
2024-10-20 Difficulty scaling in Starfield, problems, alternatives
This game scales:
- By the player level
- By the system level
- By the Settings difficulties
- By the NG+ count
The result is a mess. The hardest scenario is at low level, about 1 to 15,
on Extreme difficulty. After that, difficulty steadily drops (assuming you
learned powers, for NG+). The hardest run I did was trying on Very Hard to
reach the Unity at the lowest possible level (without cheesing the
challenge) - managing level 18 on the third try (having to avoid killing
things made Nishina... interesting). Locking my level at level 1 was even
more interesting. Overall, what I've seen is that:
- Ramping up enemy levels to match the player even in starting areas ruins
the feeling of progress
- Ramping up starting gear in a game with a near-restart mechanic (NG+) to
match player level kills the gear upgrade game loop
- Raising health as an expression of "level" either turns the player and
enemies into bullet sponges or forces lore-breaking choices to compensate
(see point on gear)
- Having to empty multiple magazines of automatic weapons into a frozen
NPC's face at point blank range to kill it breaks the suspension of
disbelief
Instead, it should work like:
- Players should have to seek out higher level systems for more challenge
and higher tier gear
- Health should only scale up from skills (ideally NPCs can have skills too)
- Defense should scale up by skills and gear, and that should make far more
difference than health
- Higher level enemies need to show changed behavior and capabilities
(bullet sponge is a poor fallback)
- A stunned or frozen player or NPC should reasonably lose certain damage
mitigations
- Low level systems should only have low tier gear, unless some questline
changes this (which should have to be redone for each NG+)
And choosing between the two should be some kind of Setting, mostly around
level impact on health + gear availability.
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