I've put over a 100 hours into Starfield and here's my observations and opinion. For me, Starfield is more like Fallout 4 than any other Bethesda game. The reason why I say that is because of the genre, outpost/ship building and the type of available loot. In Skyrim you could build a house, even more if you used mods, but the building was very limited when compared to Fallout 4 and Starfield.
For a new and supposed modern Bethesda game, you would think that the developers would have brought over ideas from Fallout 4 and it's modding community.
For example:
- furniture where you can actually store something in them
- genre specific habitats (like the ones in Vault-Tec)
- bathroom fixtures that work
- deconstruction of loot
- ships that will allow you to store loot in the storage spaces populating the modules (like Fallout's settlements)
- allow players to place favorite loot on shelves for display
- when choosing another ship allow players the choice to take the cargo with them or leave it on the previous ship, exactly where it was placed by the player. (kind of like in Fallout when moving to another home or settlement).
Also, I hate wallpaper. For me, wallpaper is when the developers create something like the interior of a ship, and you can't really interact with it. That means you can walk down the hallways, but can't open or store anything. The entire modules of your ship are just eye candy...this is pathetic. The ship is a cell, which you enter through a load screen. This is similar to when you enter your home in Fallout 4 or Skyrim. The developers could easily enable interaction with nearly everything in those cells.
Lastly, lets talk about Creation Engine 2. Using a dated engine is a huge mistake. Some things look or function OK, but in many areas it looks and acts like the Fallout 4 of 2015. Just a little comparison. I play a lot of The Division 2 (released in 2019) and the third person mechanics and visuals are levels better than Starfield. Combat in Starfield is clumsy in comparison. Creation Engine should have been retired and a new one developed or purchased.
Having said all that, I do like Starfield. I hope that DLCs and mods will improve the game, a game that should have been better developed before releasing it to the public. If it improves, maybe I'll spend just as much time playing it as I did playing Fallout 4 (currently 6309 hours).