Todd Howard Says Starfield’s “Really Stupid” Ship Combat AI Was Intentional: “They Did an Incredible Job”

[Tsing]

Why do Crimson Fleet and other Starfield vessels melt like a hot knife through butter when they're blasted by particle weapons? Probably because the game was intentionally designed that way, according to director Todd Howard, who told Insomniac Games' Ted Price during a new Game Maker's Notebook podcast this week that the team had wrestled with the game's difficulty and ultimately decided to make the AI "really stupid" on purpose for a more enjoyable experience. Howard's speech seems to regard space battles, mainly, but the rest of Starfield can also be very easy, with weapons like the explosive Laredo shotgun allowing players to blow up level-75 enemies with one or two hits even at lower levels.

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[hubaduba]

"Yeah, we could have made a good game, but what we were going for was...."

 

[Zarathustra]

With the exception of me starting a side quest with space battles before I was ready for it early in the game - both in space, and in the ground, has been too easy.

I've played in in very hard from hours ~15 through ~100 where I am now without ever turning it down, and it has been too easy. Makes me wonder why the easy settings even exist.