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Jason Scheier: "Starfield 83 Metacritic Score was only possible because of Xbox outlets"

KungFucius

King Snowflake
I have bitched about the game and do see major problems with it, but 83 is reasonable. It has a lot of content that is decent and good production values. I'd personally score it lower but a lot of my hate towards it is that it did not evolve the format and that the design choices they made resulted in lousy exploration, which for me is the main draw of Bethesda games, not the grindy MMO shit.
 

KungFucius

King Snowflake
the problem these days is that they try to make the game as big as posible and think thats enough , all we could hear about starfield was how big it was and that you have 1000 planets to explore , lets look at larian for example because its the most recent high success , every time they showed the game they talked about how much you can do in it , how progression works , how much choice and consequence there is , how the world reacts to what you do , because its an rpg

if someone is making an rpg and the things that he brags about are the size of the map and use of pronouns from the npc then you should already see it as a bad sign
Why do you have to bring in pronouns? Why make it about your personal hate of others?
 

The Pleasure

Gold Member
Yeah, I don't know what the answer is.

I remember that 94 is why I bought Ragnarok, and I didn't make it more than 10 hours. I was very let down but the lowest I'd go was an 8 just because so much of it is polished and well made. That was a BotW level transformative score, 94. I ended up really regretting that purchase, so I don't know what happened there. That's a hugely significant "all time great" type of score.

I don't know what happens with most reviews these days. I know Starfield has some flaws, but nothing I played warranted a 4/10 like Sterling gave it, or 6/10 like Metro. Even Ragnarok which I hated I would give an 8 by trying to take my own opinion out of it and just look at what's there. I feel like there's very little of that happening with Starfield though.

I don't get it.
Because the game didn't whip the llamas ass.
thespoonyone-spoony.gif
 
The statement isn't neccecarily false, but it's so asinine to single out Starfield as an example. Bias exists with every review of an exclusive. Schreier is a moron.
It comes down to this. It's just a stupid waste of time discussion about something that isn't worth paying attention to, made by an idiot.
the wolf of wall street idgaf GIF
 

samoilaaa

Member
Why do you have to bring in pronouns? Why make it about your personal hate of others?
my god how retarted are you ? which type of lgtqasdas are you ?
first of all yes i hate the idead of indulging mental illness like existing of trans , non binary , they/them or whatever the fuck and i said it many times but this wasnt one of them , i only said that when asked about rpg elements todd instead of focusing on the progression , dialog choices , you know actual rpg elements , he instead focused on the fact that the game has 1000 planets to explore , you can customize your ship and the npcs use the pronouns you want

that wasnt a shot at the lgbtq people , my god are you people really that dumb these days ?
 
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Fess

Member
What would the score be if you removed those reviews?

There, Jason will be happy.
Metacritic are weighing scores differently so it’s difficult to do that math, but unweighed the Xbox version adds up to 85. Even with every single 10/10 score removed it’s still at 83 unweighed, and that’s removing lots of non-Xbox fansites.

Iirc Opencritic are doing things without weighing and add up Xbox and PC. There it sits at 85 with 183 reviews. The vast majority are rating it 8-9. I bet you could remove every single 10/10 there as well and it would still be 80+. That’s how average scores work, the extremes don’t do as much as people think. The whole argument is an absurd nothing burger tbh. But it’s Jason, no surprise. 🙄
 

Hudo

Member
Metacritic are weighing scores differently so it’s difficult to do that math, but unweighed the Xbox version adds up to 85. Even with every single 10/10 score removed it’s still at 83 unweighed, and that’s removing lots of non-Xbox fansites.

Iirc Opencritic are doing things without weighing and add up Xbox and PC. There it sits at 85 with 183 reviews. The vast majority are rating it 8-9. I bet you could remove every single 10/10 there as well and it would still be 80+. That’s how average scores work, the extremes don’t do as much as people think. The whole argument is an absurd nothing burger tbh. But it’s Jason, no surprise. 🙄
That's the only real interesting thing (for me) to come out of Schreiers Twitter crap: I did not know that Metacritic is weighting outlets. I assume these weights or the weighting methods aren't public?
 

Arsic

Loves his juicy stink trail scent
what do you expected? is the most important RPG of the last 10 years and yes, its exclusive after all.
Most important of the last 10 years? Lmao. Who wrote this script?

It was the most important Xbox game of the year. Just like every year there’s this one title that is going to save Xbox. This year it’s what? Indiana jones? Avowed? Stalker 2? Then next year it’s fable. The cycle never ends.

Starfield people at most were hailing it was going to be a really good Bethesda RPG.

Most would tell you BG3 is the most important RPG of the last 10 years.
 

Fess

Member
That's the only real interesting thing (for me) to come out of Schreiers Twitter crap: I did not know that Metacritic is weighting outlets. I assume these weights or the weighting methods aren't public?
Don’t know I’ve just heard that some bigger websites can affect the score a bit, like Edge.
But in this case it’s not doing much when there are over 80 reviews and the vast majority are rating it 8 and up. Even when shaving off the 10s we’re left with over 50 reviews between 80 and 99, so that’s that. Biggest segment is 90s, over 30 reviews there. This is for the Xbox version which is what's triggering Jason from what I can tell. PC version is rated higher, 81% positive reviews, 0 negative.
 
Hardly surprising or revealing anything. Of course openly declared MS or Bethesda Fanboys will rate "their own" games higher, they made it the entire point of their website not to be multiplatform and focus solely on their babys which would only backfire and be apparantly dumb if third party games would be a lot better and they would need to praise first party stuff way beyond any reason.
I generally think practically all games are rated to high, but in a world where 8/10 is considered already almost bad, being only above that bar, not achieveing where the aim probably was; ie Skyrim or at least Fallout3 scores, is embarassing enough for the most important MS game of last year and most important for their gen so far.
 

Topher

Identifies as young
Most important of the last 10 years? Lmao. Who wrote this script?

It was the most important Xbox game of the year. Just like every year there’s this one title that is going to save Xbox. This year it’s what? Indiana jones? Avowed? Stalker 2? Then next year it’s fable. The cycle never ends.

Starfield people at most were hailing it was going to be a really good Bethesda RPG.

Most would tell you BG3 is the most important RPG of the last 10 years.

The game was hyped as game of the generation by many people. The expectations for the game were for more than any other Xbox title for quite some time. And far more than any of the other games you mentioned.
 

hemo memo

You can't die before your death
I don’t see what they can do. Maybe refuse to review it. A good game being barely upgraded doesn’t turn it into a bad game, especially if it is the definitive best version.
At 50$? It absolutely does make it a bad game. We are talking about the equivalent of a PC slider setting here that they are asking people 50$ for. If you don’t have the basic technical abilities as a big site then yes don’t review it as it will only makes your review embarrassing when you slap a 10 score and call it a big upgrade when you’re supposedly a professional journalist. CDPR offered content in upgrades and DLC for FREE more than this embarrassing 50$ repacking.

I’m not asking you to be Digital Foundry but c’mon at least ask your technical savvy colleague before you go like a 13 years old kid getting his big gift shouting how great of a big upgrade this release is.
 
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Fess

Member
At 50$? It absolutely does make it a bad game. We are talking about the equivalent of a PC slider setting here that’s they are asking people 50$ for. If you don’t have the basic technical abilities as a big site then yes don’t review it as it will only makes your review embarrassing when you slap a 10 score and call it a big upgrade when you’re supposedly a professional journalist. CDPR offered content in upgrades and DLC for FREE more than this embarrassing 50$ repacking.

I’m not asking you to be Digital Foundry but c’mon at least ask your technical savvy colleague before you go like a 13 years old kid getting his big gift shouting how great of a big upgrade this release is.
Have the reviewers said that it is a big upgrade? That’s bad of course if that’s not the case.
But if they just say it’s a great game and rate it high then that’s exactly what they should do. They should rate the game, not the upgrade. Not everyone has played the original and you shouldn’t look at reviews and come away thinking it’s better to buy the PS4 version, if that’s a 10, because the PS5 version is rated lower, lets say 8, if the games are identical and the new version slightly improved. You get what I mean? If it’s a 8 now then the PS4 game never deserved the high scores to begin with, unless it has aged surprisingly fast.
 
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gow3isben

Member
This for sure happens to Nintendo and Sony too. IMO because they are too Samey Ragnarok and ToTK would be 90-92 without bias

But this is a severe example stronger than most where if the reviewer bias were eliminated it would likely be mid 70s

And don’t even get me started on the cherry picking of initial review sites they did
 
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Fess

Member
This for sure happens to Nintendo and Sony too. IMO because they are too Samey Ragnarok and ToTK would be 90-92 without bias

But this is a severe example stronger than most where if the reviewer bias were eliminated it would likely be mid 70s

And don’t even get me started on the cherry picking of initial review sites they did
As said higher up there is nothing that point to this game ever ending up below 80 among critics even with the most extreme filtering. All reviews are out there to read. The biggest bulk of reviews are in the 90s, after that 80s. Then there are a small minority around 70 and 100. In the end it ends up at mid 80.
 
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WitchHunter

Banned
They have gravdrive, but phones do not exist :D. You have to talk with everyone in person. What a game. Go there, talk, get back on ship, go another place, talk, go back. 2023 breakthrough award! A 200 million $ game bleeding profusely from every orifice.

What's the problem with this JS guy?
 
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dorkimoe

Gold Member
He’s right. As someone who’s favorite games are the fallout games. This game is held back by its engine, constant loading and the most boring exploration ever. I’m having more fun playing Gotham knights on gamepass
 
The game is, very clearly, extremely limited due to the Creation Engine 2. The gameplay, though more 'fluid' and 'responsive' than ever, still felt a little dated. Games such as the now ancient Mass Effect series did a lot of what Starfield was doing waaaay better. That's not to say that StarField had nothing going for it, to the contrary, its just more difficult to create something great when you have the Creation Engine ball and chain weighing you down.
 

JackMcGunns

Member
He’s right. As someone who’s favorite games are the fallout games. This game is held back by its engine, constant loading and the most boring exploration ever. I’m having more fun playing Gotham knights on gamepass


He's not right, you're conflating two different points. Starfield is not a perfect game by any means, in fact it has many flaws that hold it back from what could've been an amazing RPG and that's why it doesn't score into the 9's, but to say Xbox shills are helping the score while at the same time not talking about there also being Sony shills helping PS scores, it is WHY Metacritic exists and has become the go to place for gamers to see where this average lands, the average between Xbox shills, Sony Shills and honest reviews = The Meta Score, so his statement is just stupid and misleading.
 
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DenchDeckard

Moderated wildly
Metacritic are weighing scores differently so it’s difficult to do that math, but unweighed the Xbox version adds up to 85. Even with every single 10/10 score removed it’s still at 83 unweighed, and that’s removing lots of non-Xbox fansites.

Iirc Opencritic are doing things without weighing and add up Xbox and PC. There it sits at 85 with 183 reviews. The vast majority are rating it 8-9. I bet you could remove every single 10/10 there as well and it would still be 80+. That’s how average scores work, the extremes don’t do as much as people think. The whole argument is an absurd nothing burger tbh. But it’s Jason, no surprise. 🙄

So if we remove every single xbox titled review it would barely move the needle?

Is Jason Schrier, ok?

What a tool!
 

Fess

Member
So if we remove every single xbox titled review it would barely move the needle?

Is Jason Schrier, ok?

What a tool!
He’s is just looking for clicks.

When doing plain math, adding all scores and dividing by the number of reviews, the average goes from 85 to 84 with every single Xbox and Windows-titled website removed. So one point lower.

Then Metacritic adds it’s unknown math formula, so as said I removed all 10s and it still only moved the real math average score from 85 to 83. And that’s removing 9 non-Xbox-titled reviews. Jason ”forgot” to tell everyone that only one 10/10 review is from an Xbox-related website.

But still, if that’s not enough, lets try removing everything above 90. That’ll be something right? This means we’re removing 20 of the highest scores, 5 of which are Xbox-related. Then it still land on 81.

Etc.

You see? If you would plot it all out on a graph it would be easily seen that the lower and and higher scores are outlier. They can’t change the score much in either direction with any type of filtering magic or weighing when 50 reviews out of 80 are sitting there keeping things sane between 80 and 90.
 

Jadsey

Member
Oh no, Jason Schrier is talking facts....I'm pretty sure this is one of the 4 signs of the end of days.
 

Fess

Member
Oh no, Jason Schrier is talking facts....I'm pretty sure this is one of the 4 signs of the end of days.
Add up the scores and divide by the number of reviews.
Remove the Xbox-related websites and do the math again with the new number of reviews.
Facts: It would drop the average score by one point.
Woohoo time to post on Twitter for clicks!

It’s actually amazing that he can write this stuff without any shame. Everyone can see the numbers. And it’s easy math. I guess he’s hiding behind Metacritic’s vague math formula that is making a big website have more weight than a small one. But as I said above it doesn’t matter. There are too many reviews sitting between 80-90 that will minimize the effect from outlier scores both high and low no matter how you filter it.
 
Most important of the last 10 years? Lmao. Who wrote this script?

It was the most important Xbox game of the year. Just like every year there’s this one title that is going to save Xbox. This year it’s what? Indiana jones? Avowed? Stalker 2? Then next year it’s fable. The cycle never ends.

Starfield people at most were hailing it was going to be a really good Bethesda RPG.
Our queen Sara Bond.

Most would tell you BG3 is the most important RPG of the last 10 years.
That is the irony and yes, it has involuntary time Exclusive :messenger_winking_tongue:
 

Papa_Wisdom

Member
Still yet to play this after I finish cyberpunk (which I have still yet to even start) think I’m going to wait on it for a bit til it’s patched up a bit, and hopefully some of the main gripes rectified. Wouldn’t mind waiting for mods also but that disables achievements.

Although I realise it’s not gods gift as it was hyped up to be I generally like Bethesda games so I’m willing to jump on and go exploring.

Meta critic scores don’t bother me I’ve bit, some of my best games could be considered absolute trash if we’re going by that metric alone.
 

JackMcGunns

Member
He’s is just looking for clicks.

When doing plain math, adding all scores and dividing by the number of reviews, the average goes from 85 to 84 with every single Xbox and Windows-titled website removed. So one point lower.

Then Metacritic adds it’s unknown math formula, so as said I removed all 10s and it still only moved the real math average score from 85 to 83. And that’s removing 9 non-Xbox-titled reviews. Jason ”forgot” to tell everyone that only one 10/10 review is from an Xbox-related website.

But still, if that’s not enough, lets try removing everything above 90. That’ll be something right? This means we’re removing 20 of the highest scores, 5 of which are Xbox-related. Then it still land on 81.

Etc.

You see? If you would plot it all out on a graph it would be easily seen that the lower and and higher scores are outlier. They can’t change the score much in either direction with any type of filtering magic or weighing when 50 reviews out of 80 are sitting there keeping things sane between 80 and 90.


Oh wow, I noticed how quickly this thread died.

Must've started raining :unsure:

29i5eg.jpg
 

Fess

Member
Oh wow, I noticed how quickly this thread died.

Must've started raining :unsure:

29i5eg.jpg
I mean it’s nothing special, all the numbers are there. I advice everyone that find review scores interesting to try doing the math, go with a different game if Starfield is uninteresting. Try removing some websites or experiment with higher or lower scores. Might learn something new, like how insignificant a couple low scores actually are if there is a majority higher up.

The only uncertainity for me is how Metacritic gets their average. Maybe there is a factor of two for Edge, IGN, Gamespot or something like that. Still don’t matter in this case though, I tried fiddling with such scenarios, nothing is going to affect the score like Jason says.
 
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WitchHunter

Banned
The game is, very clearly, extremely limited due to the Creation Engine 2. The gameplay, though more 'fluid' and 'responsive' than ever, still felt a little dated. Games such as the now ancient Mass Effect series did a lot of what Starfield was doing waaaay better. That's not to say that StarField had nothing going for it, to the contrary, its just more difficult to create something great when you have the Creation Engine ball and chain weighing you down.
The game is extremely limited by the knuckleheads, who led the designers. Here is a partial (!) list of what was fucked up, seriously in the game:

- mission structure reminds me of 90s, early 2000s. Repetitive, people talk too much, you have no options to fuck up people you don't like, hell, you don't even have the option to kill despicable people, like the guvnor of Neon, or that despicably scumsucking bitch who tells you to go fetch coffee. I mean who created these missions? Was the individual beaten as a child or what the fuck is going on here?
- everyone uses you, you can't use anyone... just the usual, go fetch based missions.
- they forced the spacefight aspect into the game, but it feels like it was an afterthought at best.
- they borrowed the xwing/tie fighter aspects of the space fights, and they failed implementing it in a proper way. Encounters look like this: get the circle pop up, then keep the fire button pressed, watch as enemies die... I mean why on earth they spent a lot of time implementing this, if the end result feels like a spacesim for 3 year olds? no challenge, boring, bland, superficial. the targeting mode unlockable with the skill tree... ridiculous.
- you can find a legendary equipment set at the very beginning of the game. you don't have any incentive to replace it, since it works and nothing you find is better, but you look the same throughout the game : DDD
- the ship builder is nice, but what for? since the dogfights are too easy, there is nothing that forces people to even touch it.
- the ending, this is what you've done is a slapdashed, horribly overlooked shitberg, a large mass of turd. even fallout 2 had better summary of your actions. thank you for playing 50 hours, we don't give a fuck is the message : D.
- mission breaking bugs after several patches. you literally stand there and cannot continue your journey. Skip it, start over? Nonexisting support. Drop that fucking discord already.
- the starmonkeys are ridiculous. we are the bigdicks, they say... then you walk over and slap them, and they die... pffffff.... you can also oneshot their highly advanced ship too : DDD
- the temples, after the 3rd one (and there are 20+ more) are useless. why all these powers, if you run out missions/story midway?
- you are aligned with faction X, yet, if you kill them, no repercussions...
- fps combat also got fucked up. too many weapons (although the weapons look and feel fucking awesome, but the mediocre sound effects kill the fun), enemies act like idiots,
- Idiotic game mechanics, like the O2 meter... or the totally unnecessary skills... WHYYY?
- characters are like empty dolls with an embedded speaking chip. their actions do not arouse any emotion in you, hell, some even deserve the Dobermann treatment.
- INVENTORY MANAGEMENT! Everpresent angst because you are carrying too much. Can't sort shit, hard to find things etc. Get the fuck out of here.
- Unique weapon names, so it is harder to find how many of the same weapon you have. So you have 3 shotguns:

Bigdik SHOTGUN
Sixbarrelfun SHOTGUN
SHOTGUN

Instead of:

SHOTGUN, Bigdik
SHOTGUN, Sixbarrelfun
SHOTGUN

I mean do the people, who created this game, ever played it from start to finish? And if so, how come these never popped up on their radar as warning signs?

A total mess, not tested, a fuckup of gargantuan proportions. Left hand doesn't know what the other does.


And all these little things fuck up your overall experience. No matter how great the game looks, how friggin cool the equipment and weapons are, how captivating some (!) of the missions are when the small things make your life miserable playing.

And people expect that this flawed beauty gets 90+, for what? With this big of a budget, with 10+ years of experience? 65/100 max
 
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Topher

Identifies as young
10 was not possible only because of PlayStation outlets.

lol.....what?

Metacritic are weighing scores differently so it’s difficult to do that math, but unweighed the Xbox version adds up to 85. Even with every single 10/10 score removed it’s still at 83 unweighed, and that’s removing lots of non-Xbox fansites.

Iirc Opencritic are doing things without weighing and add up Xbox and PC. There it sits at 85 with 183 reviews. The vast majority are rating it 8-9. I bet you could remove every single 10/10 there as well and it would still be 80+. That’s how average scores work, the extremes don’t do as much as people think. The whole argument is an absurd nothing burger tbh. But it’s Jason, no surprise. 🙄

That's pretty typical and we saw that quite a bit in the review thread. The game hovered in the mid-80s and only extreme reviews such as the 40/100 by jimquisition made a noticeable difference.
 
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GD2X

Neo Member
I really enjoyed it as well, the game is absolutely packed with content. I think 80+ at the bare minimum is fair.
As much as I agree with the general opinions about Starfield being a bit of a let down, I really liked the game for what it is and not for what it promised to be, it deserves an 80+ score, I think.
 

DenchDeckard

Moderated wildly
He’s is just looking for clicks.

When doing plain math, adding all scores and dividing by the number of reviews, the average goes from 85 to 84 with every single Xbox and Windows-titled website removed. So one point lower.

Then Metacritic adds it’s unknown math formula, so as said I removed all 10s and it still only moved the real math average score from 85 to 83. And that’s removing 9 non-Xbox-titled reviews. Jason ”forgot” to tell everyone that only one 10/10 review is from an Xbox-related website.

But still, if that’s not enough, lets try removing everything above 90. That’ll be something right? This means we’re removing 20 of the highest scores, 5 of which are Xbox-related. Then it still land on 81.

Etc.

You see? If you would plot it all out on a graph it would be easily seen that the lower and and higher scores are outlier. They can’t change the score much in either direction with any type of filtering magic or weighing when 50 reviews out of 80 are sitting there keeping things sane between 80 and 90.

Thanks for the info. Really interesting. Love it.

Jason is really off base here then and I bet if anyone were as decent as you and showed him this data he would block them.

What an odd person.
 
Who cares.

The real story here is that this ugly man is still able to grab so much attention by using Starfield's name. Truly one of the most influential games EVER.
 

Fess

Member
That's pretty typical and we saw that quite a bit in the review thread. The game hovered in the mid-80s and only extreme reviews such as the 40/100 by jimquisition made a noticeable difference.
Hmm that’s interesting, do you remember how much it changed? I hope they don’t add any extra wheight to that nonsense.
Just by doing plain math that review don’t move the score a whole point, 0.6.
But with unfortunate decimals when they round it off it could triple down one spot, from 85.9 to 85.3 if you just do normal math, so from 86 to 85 rounded off.
 

Topher

Identifies as young
Who cares.

The real story here is that this ugly man is still able to grab so much attention by using Starfield's name. Truly one of the most influential games EVER.

How is Starfield "influential"?

Hmm that’s interesting, do you remember how much it changed? I hope they don’t add any extra wheight to that nonsense.
Just by doing plain math that review don’t move the score a whole point, 0.6.
But with unfortunate decimals when they round it off it could triple down one spot, from 85.9 to 85.3 if you just do normal math, so from 86 to 85 rounded off.

I think the score went down a point after that review, but yeah a .6 change can do that.
 

Fess

Member
Thanks for the info. Really interesting. Love it.

Jason is really off base here then and I bet if anyone were as decent as you and showed him this data he would block them.

What an odd person.
No problem 🤝 I don’t even like math lol but I don’t like when people lie and talk like they’re sitting on facts, especially when it’s someone people actually listen to.
 

StereoVsn

Member
Both on Xbox and PC there have been plenty of shills. On Xbox you got all the obvious suspects.

And on PC side, you have people like Windows Central or other sites that basically got paid off.
 
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