The problem is that Todd and the rest of the creative team decided rather than doubling down on the RPG elements in a meaningful way, they would rather strip away all the mechanics and nerf them into essential obsolescence.

Planets were originally going to be a lot less forgiving and you would need different space suits for the environments. So for example, your frost prevention suit wouldn't help you in a high radiation environment, and you would need a different set of suits for different conditions. Not anymore! Now we just get a little icon in the HUD that says "planet conditions bad" and does nothing meaningful.

Starfield just made me want to go back to Cyberpunk 2077 where all the ground-based mechanics are done better, or to No Man's Sky, where all the ground-based and space-based mechanics are better.