Starfield’s persuasion system feels broken

[Ed. note: The following contains light spoilers for Starfield’s main quest.]

Starfield has been building toward one particular moment in its main quest: the culmination of the collection of the universe’s mysterious artifacts. I spent 20 hours working toward the final artifacts, and with two button clicks, I was able to persuade my way out of the entire scenario — suddenly, the main quest was basically done. The fight that the whole storyline was building up to just didn’t happen.

I will not spoil any more of the plot, but just to let you know that Starfield’s persuasion system is broken. Throughout dozens of hours, I’ve come up against dozens of persuasion checks, and nearly every time, the system has led the conversation in bizarre or situation-breaking ways; there are just some scenarios you shouldn’t be able to talk your way out of.

Image: Bethesda Game Studios/Bethesda Softworks via Polygon

The mainline mission climax is one of them, but there are a bunch of others, too: One quest takes you and your companion Sam Coe to his father’s house, despite his reluctance. He’s been in a decades-long feud with his father, but we need a family heirloom, which his father won’t give him — not ever, the patriarch implies. The persuasion technique allowed me to easily obtain the object by saying that giving it to me would end my irritating persistence. By threatening the other man, I was able to end an old family dispute.

Another, more minor instance happens in a little side quest where someone sends me off to kill a former partner — I’m to bring back her gun to prove I finished the job. Instead of killing her, though, I decided to try and persuade her to give me the gun, which she just said she’d You can never have enough of your own?Allow yourself to let go. Yet, I still left the ship, with her gun and her previous owner alive.

The 180-degree rotations of these pivots are a good example. Starfield feel like a Dungeons & Dragons campaign led by a bad Dungeon Master, and they’re complete hindrances to Starfield’s role-playing.

You can also find out more about the following: SkyrimPersuasion points are tied into the system. Dialog options may lead to persuasion attempts, where the game will roll an invisible dice. In a sense, these checks test the choices you’ve made in your long-term skill point distribution. Starfield’s persuasion system, on the other hand, is more of a minigame. You can still increase your chance of passing a persuasion check by progressing through the skill tree, but you’ll need to choose dialogue options on a set number of turns to fill up a persuasion meter.

Say you’re trying to get a gang of bank robbers to let their hostages go. You’ll have a couple of dialogue options available to choose from, each highlighted in red, yellow, or green — like a stoplight. Red is riskier, but will fill up the persuasion bar more if you succeed. Green is safer and offers a smaller reward. These are linked to a few canned phrases in the main quest. However, there will be some custom dialogue options that are tailored to the specific scenario. You are asked to aid in the Sam Coe storyline, where you have to solve a case of bank robbery. The dialogue options for this scenario, however, is more subtle and makes sense.

Image: Bethesda Game Studios/Bethesda Softworks via Polygon

Starfield’s persuasion system is so opaque that I don’t fully understand it, even after Bethesda’s barebones tutorial. As such, I haven’t upgraded my skills in that area at all. But still, I’m able to successfully persuade even the most brutal of killers to my way of thinking.

Bethesda’s improvements to the game were something I hoped for. Skyrim’s effective but ultimately rudimentary system. What’s more, my co-workers have been raving about the impact of conversational choices and persuasion dice rolls in Baldur’s Gate 3. Playing with Starfield’s persuasion system too often feels like playing Dungeons & Dragons with a DM more concerned with the dice rolls themselves than with telling an interesting wider story. The In Starfield. character motivation can be thrown away on a dime. With so many compelling side stories and compelling adventures to take part in, it’s a shame that the main quest bows down to the dice so easily.