Starfield

I feel similarly. One of the biggest things for me is how, although much does feel like a Bethesda game, there were some times it felt like they'd just take stuff out of other games and dumped it in. The lack of vehicles annoyed me too, and don't get me started on the basically non existent local map

I could forgive bethesda games because I used to be able to look at them as "greater than the sum of its parts"

Fallout 4 with mods just barely got away with it.

Starfield has too many issues for me.

The biggest one, your second issue of loading screens, I don't think mods can fix. There just will never be a seamless overworld because of the spaceship mechanic.

My recommendation is to mod away the bullet sponge. It made the combat much better for me.

The npc has a lot of life in standard but they then get 20 hp more for every level.

Look at your weapons and you realize how much they absorb just from leveling compared to your weapons.

I've only watched someone play it, but it does seem like it is super superficial, like a puddle that looks deep but is only a few inches

Loading screens are really the biggest negative for me. And navigating the menus takes some time.

I really enjoyed Fallout 4. And it feels pretty close to that for me with MUCH better gunplay. I can feel this being a time sink for me once i can actually get my teeth sunk in to it.

What's a good space combat game?

X-Wing was one of my all-time favourite games, it was late niceties and got followed to by tie fighter then X-Wing Vs tie fighter but the original was best. It was really simple combat, lasers or rockets and you had to balance power between shields and lasers. I don't know what made it so great, there was a pace to it the just felt so good - lining up and blowing a tie fighter then another and coming down on the third, doing a hard breaking turn and driving your speed to get behind it and land a shot in its rear before it can outpace your maximum acceleration.

X com interceptor was a great game too, I remember it being deeply flawed but incredibly easy to get hooked into playing for hours. Combat was a bit more like wing commander which was a touch more strategic and less frantic.

Any good, ideally cheap, space combat games anyone can suggest?

Wasn't quite sure at first, but I kinda knew what to expect from a BethRPG - slowly grew on me and now i'm pretty into it. About 22 hours in and I feel like i'm getting thru most of the main quest. Seen some cool stuff, and I guess there's a NG+ so i'll probably push thru the main plot and then go a bit slower in the next game.

Wish you could traverse planets a bit faster, it can be a bit tedious. Felt like too much fast travel at first, but once you embrace it, it does move things along. (Wouldn't want to play with a HDD and not an SSD) Gunplay isn't bad. The companions are annoying and seemingly turn into stalkers lol.

I think it makes great use of the engine. The game is super fun, way better than Cyberpunk 2077 (which is basically just Grand Theft Auto). The worlds are cool. The stories are great.

I think it's a great game.

I'm a social pariah for not even enjoying old Bethesda rpg games. So much loot fatigue.

I have a recommendation for running out of ammo and health packs: spend the time searching everything. There are boxes of ammo everywhere to the point that I've never gotten close to worrying about running out.

Yes, it's tedious, yes, it's probably not great gameplay to have to spend so much time searching rooms, but it helps you not run out of ammo.

It took me quite a few attempts to get into the game, but I'm really enjoying it now. For me it's the first 3D game I'm properly playing on the xbox so there's a bit of a learning curve there (I'm used to mouse and keyboard on pc).

The biggest things that helped me enjoy it: when navigating cities or buildings that are all super maze-like, you can use your scanner to actually guide you in the right direction with little arrows on the ground as pathfinding. I kept getting lost and giving up on quests until I saw this in a video.

In the beginning I'd spent most of my money every time i was in town to pretty much fully fill my inventory with ammo, lockpicks and med packs. Especially since I'm trying to learn how to aim with a controller I'll waste a lot of clips missing completely. Just maxing out on ammo makes it a lot easier (and using a shotgun early on, just run at them and blast em point blank, lots of dmg / bullet)

Looking up how the UI / systems work online.. i wanted to do a pure experience, but holy crap is the UI hard to figure out sometimes. Especially things to do with ship building and traveling.

I'm really liking the random side quests though, and was just wasting away my entire Saturday playing, which hasn't happened in years for me.