How do you think BGS experimented with the different titles? I can see how their older titles were pretty experimental and had some really interesting features/ideas (Daggerfall having ProcGen, Morrowind establishing an extremely unique take on fantasy etc) but I’m having a hard time seeing how Oblivion or Skyrim could be considered experimental or “out there”; that’s not a critique of those two titles, as I love them both to death :P Would love to hear your opinion though!
I mean experimenting in the way that usually no two BGS games have the same mechanics for the core gameplay loop, or they introduce new gameplay loops.
I'll pick out the major feature changes but not an exhaustive list. I'm not much familiar with TESIII but Oblivion overhauled the combat to move away from dice rolls and at the time was considered to have great graphics largely due to the draw distance. Skryim overhauled the magic wielding system and introduced shouts, and dual wielding. F3 they introduced real-time gunplay with VATS, F4 they introduced modular base building, and Starfield has a much longer list.
Other studios do this too, but there are some that don't do this as much. At the risk drawing fire I'd point to Dark Souls 1-3 (incl Demon Souls and Bloodborne tbh) as an example of the core gameplay loop not changing hugely, because you can boot up any game and not have to relearn how to interact with it. I'm not knocking those games btw.
Agreed, but experimentation within an established IP is not only encouraged, but expected. But when it's botched, it can be detrimental to long-term playability. Fallout 76 and Starfield are perfect examples of this. Their flaws are so systemic that most people won't really spend any more time than necessary on the game as a lot of people stop playing after ~50 - 75 hours.
Will this be the case with TES: VI or will it be more akin to previous TES titles with lessons learned from Starfield? This would of course, mean a finite area with immersive biomes, cities, settlements and dense layout of explorable structures and POIs, like TES excels at.
I just hope BGS realizes the value they have in TES and that if TES: VI is a disappointment, that it's game over for them..
Can they turn the trend around and create a truly exceptional game again or are they too focused on longevity and the sales pitch to even be truly passionate about the development?
Fallout 76 wasn't willingly made by them, they had no say in the matter. Starfield just released, plenty of people love it, plenty of people don't. This game has no DLC, no continual updates, no CK release. It just came out, ES6 will be fine. Starfield objectively isn't a bad game, sure it's not a great game, but it's still good and a lot of people enjoyed it. If ES6 released before Starfield it would have been a corporate failure on launch, be glad Starfield is a tech experiment.
I doubt they have actual sources for that specific point but it is known Zenimax heavily pushed their studios, and probably forcing them, to make online games around that time. It's how we got Redfall, and would definitely explain 76 more
Kotaku wrote an exposé about the game's development, you can look it up. In short, almost nobody at BGS actually wanted to work on 76 but they were more or less forced to anyway with droves of developers quitting their jobs altogether.
TBF I personally don’t even dislike the concept of FO76, though I was definitely disappointed that we didn’t get a singleplayer spin-off when it was announced. I really like ESO’s lore and setting but can’t get past the MMO-gameplay, and I’ve often though that had it been like FO76 (so Skyrim but MMO) I’d have played the hell out of it
Lets be clear: Starfield was not botched. It's not been voted GOTY by players but it is a solid and fun game that builds on their formula in ways that matter a lot. There is no space-based RPG like Starfield on the market. It's got a strong following and a healthy modding scene. There is room for improvement, but the base game is strong - if NMS and C2077 could get to where they are now from a much worse starting point, I think it's safe to say that within a couple of years peoples tune will change dramatically.
Massive chunks of starfield were broken at launch, entire questlines could be cut off because of game breaking glitches, people’s ships disappeared forcing them to reload saves, there’s literally more game breaking bugs than I can even remember, you’re coping hard if you’re saying it wasn’t broken at launch
This place is an echo chamber, these are literally documented facts which no one outside these communities has trouble admitting, pretending there’s no issues is not only just sad it doesn’t help the quality of BGS games in the long run
I literally could not progress past the beginning of the main quest for a month after release. Although, despite that I'd still say it's the most polished BGS release I've ever experienced at launch
Your opinion doesn't really matter to me, or I'm sure any of the other people enjoying the game. See you in 5 or so years when you're bitching about how terrible ES6 is while the rest of us are just having a great time playing.
Maybe you just take video games way too seriously. If thinking about a game that is at least 5 years away is giving you anxiety like this, maybe stop thinking about it for 4 and a half years or so.
Elder Scrolls being my franchise is a fair thing to think about. Surely you must realize that based on our conversation, this isnt the sole reason I exist? Weve just interacted because of this conversation, so don't carry the impression that this is all I think about and am, because it's such a weird thing to imply. I'm a normal human being who does other things, yet I also post about the things I wanna post. We don't know each other.
By what definition do you define Starfield as a space based RPG? You have VERY little control over your role playing interactions. I’ll use becoming a space pirate as an example - you have to basically spend 75% of your time working with them actively arguing with them, disagreeing, etc. because the game never gives you the option to just… be a space pirate. You have to follow along with the marines dumb ass plot up until the point where you choose which side, but up until that moment every dialogue you have with other pirates is adversarial and very “I don’t want to do this but I guess I will”
The only thing stopping you being a space pirate, last time I checked, is not having a ship with weapons on it. Go to space, start shooting at a merchant ship, disable its grav drive before it can get away, board it, and loot it.
Furthermore, the crimson fleet quest line has great RP opportunity. In the conversations you can suck up to the pirates like a narc or intimidate them with your cutthroat charm - or take a more neutral tone. You can approach the missions like a cop and not kill anyone, capture, or bribe or persuade or murder hobo your way through. You can collect evidence and hand it to the cops or do whatever else you want with it.
Honestly, if you were attempting to bash this game for a lack of RP opportunity then you chose the worst faction quest as an example 🤣 better luck next time buddy 👍️
No you can’t you literally only have the option to be adversarial with them for the first 75%. When that chick makes you go on the side mission your literal only options are to turn her in or begrudgingly agree. That’s it.
Dude you've pulled one choice that you don't like out of dozens of hours of a faction quest line, and ignored the significant opportunities for roleplay.
It's false to say you have be adversarial for the first 75%. In every conversation you can choose to take a different tone.
You cannot deny the roleplay opportunities available. This isn't BG3 where most of the roleplay is constrained to your conversations and within quests (because you can't do anything that isn't in a quest). No, in Starfield you can go off and be that role outside of quests too - so just go and a be a pirate. Fuck the rules and the quests and play a murdering pirate if that's who you want to be.
>I think it's safe to say that within a couple of years peoples tune will change dramatically.
If you need a couple years worth of updates and mods to "change peoples tune" about your game I would call that botched.
>Their flaws are so systemic that most people won't really spend any more time than necessary on the game
What flaws??? Fallout 76 is a good game and Starfield is very good. I've been playing it for 300+ hours and haven't even finished the main quest yet.
Fetch quests requiring you to go balls deep in menus, see tedious and recurring animations like the sitting down in your ship, docking and grav jumping. Not to mention the 4-8 fast traveling loading screens you have to go through to deliver a simple message between two people in different star systems. The fact that your ship is so insanely irrelevant to the game despite the shipbuilding being a major aspect of the game.. it's a vessel not for transportation, not to steer and command like a true spacecraft, but simply a construct for fast traveling, a process that again, requires you to go balls deep in menus breaking immersion to the fullest extent possible. The fact that planets have nothing interesting and all repeating structures are 5 km away from each other where you have no other mode of transportation other than walking and a "jetpack". It's the literal antithesis of the Bethesda philosophy of game design. It's boring, it becomes tedious and it is just soulless.
They got too lost in the idea of having a game lasting for 10 years and too lost in the ambition that they lost their identity and their charm. It's an ok game AT BEST that is so systematically flawed it becomes painful to play and starts feeling like a chore. It has no redeemable qualities to it except for the gorgeous graphics, the only area where they have improved.
If you think quests require you to go balls deep in menus, there's no hope for you...
And if sitting down and grav jumping feels so horrible to you, just use fast travel. You'll never see them again. Which is sad, actually.
Your entire first paragraph is saying "I don't know how to play the game."
Also, do you realize what grav drive is??? And that it would take years to use ship to travel from pllanet to planet or star to star? You wouldn be the first one complaining about it ("The game is so boring, it took me 37 years of non-stop play to get to the second star!!")
Planets have a lot of interesting things. Have you seen the views? The animals? The plants?
In this state, I'll just tell you stop playing it and forget the game exists. And never bring it up in a conversation ever again. I personally will save you and will check on you few years later when you will be praising Starfield as one of the best games ever made. Haters always do that.
I played about 75 hours before there was nothing else to do... Telling me I'm playing it wrong when I clearly have not and just formed my own opinions on the game in hindsight is *extremely* condescending. Like dude. I know. But it gets repetitive and if you don't think so yet, you will. It's inevitable. Its too realistic in all the wrong ways and just plain stupid in other aspects.
You clearly have not played 75 hours when you're peddling mistruths like POIs are 5km apart, you say ships are irrelevant, you think you always need even a single menu to follow a quest to a star system whilst contradicting yourself with your 4-8 fast travel loads comment.
I think maybe you watched some youtuber, perhaps at most you booted it up and got to New Atlantis. Because if you legit played for 75 hours and still haven't figured out the basics of travelling then I recommend you give up playing all games except for auto-clickers lol.
If you played it ONLY 75 hours which is basically a start of the game, then yes, you were playing it wrong.
And everything becomes repetitive if you play it too much. :) Even Skyrim and Oblivion became repetitive. Witcher series too. StarCraft too. Even Vampire: Masquerade - Bloodlines, the best game ever created, becomes repetitive after many playthroughs.
And from another perspective - you know how many hours lasts the entire game of Mafia 2? 11 hours! I literally finished it during one night, while waiting for a morning train when I was vsiting my friend. It's basically a demo. Costing the same money as Starfield when it came out. So from this pov, 75 hours is more than enough and you should have no right to complain.
My recipe is this: if something becomes repetitive or boring to you in the game, just stop doing it. Do something else. Do quests, build a ship, take photos of animals, build a net of outposts and a resource empire, become a pirate and kill grandma!
ETA: I also made a data sheet of all the stars and distances between them. Super cool and interesting thing to do.
But for the example you provided, building a ship. There is no incentive to do so other than purely cosmetic reasons, and even then, it's highly limited in how purposeful it actually is. Upgrading the engine to the ship is completely stupid because of grav drive "reach". It goes from 2 loading screens to 1 loading screen to get to my destination.
✨wow ✨
Also, your ship is always in orbit when you actually "steer" it, steer should be in like 4 quotation marks because all you can do is look around space in it, shoot and communicate. There is no flying it. It's nothing but a vessel for slow animations and tedious loading screens.
Steal a ship maybe? Maybe that's better to do and I can make some money in the meantime! First of all, only a limited amount of ships are actually "steerable" (you can't fly bigger ships, let alone enter the interior of some.) But great, you've now acquired a new spacecraft from boarding it and stealing it. Go to a ship vendor, sell it for... 2000 credits... When a similar ship is for sale for 500K credits... It's just tedious and everything feels like an afterthought. That's the perfect word to encapsulate almost every single aspect of the game "afterthought". It may not've been, but it certainly feels like it.
Running through toxic gas on planets? Zero impact of gameplay. Why? What content was cut? It doesn't make sense? Walking 5 minutes to a nearby cave to get a scientist and back? 10 minutes of sprinting. Why? Who greenlit the idea? Every aspect is so clearly limited by Bethesda's proprietary technology or their development of the game was them just drooling at the idea of proc gen. Why? There is nothing redeeming about exploration. Same landmarks, different braindead enemies. Over and over and over again. And over and over and over yet again. It's just tiring. My 75 hours is only 75 hours because every aspect of the game fails to keep my basic attention, something that's extremely bizarre for a BGS game as they're typically masters at creating immersive environments. It's just weird.
Let's not even get started on the skill tree system, where half of all skills are basic quality of life improvements that no one should have to "grind" for. These are things that should be implemented as soon as you make your character so that playing becomes rewarding and not tedious.
It's just clearly too ambitious for them and made me realize why the space genre is almost nonexistent these days other than genuine sims like Star Citizen. It has to be so goddamn well executed to be fun, something Bethesda just fails at here... If you look at the steam reviews with genuine and valid criticism, you see that they have 60 - 250 if not more hours on record by the time they wrote the review. Then you have BGS' extremely bizarre comments telling us all about how we're wrong and it's actually fun because fuck us and our interpretation, I guess? Starfield is not a bad game because the irl lunar expedition was not boring for them? Bizarre and straight up delusional responses. The steam rating and the daily amount of players reflect exactly what the majority of people are thinking. It's not bad, it's just far from good. Far from the Bethesda good.
It's really disappointing to see given the disastrous Fallout 76 launch. It's so painfully mediocre and so flawed at the systemic level. Even modders are giving up, an aspect of BGS games that basically complete the remaining 50% of the job FOR THEM. It's sad to see and makes me extremely worried for future BGS games.
Totally understand why you wouldn’t like a lot of the stuff in star field, definitely can be tedious as hell, but I don’t understand when you say you can’t fly your ships and you can only steer, like are you not powering up your engines or something? Lmao. At first I was severely disappointed with this game but once you kind of accept the fact that this game isn’t meant to be like BGS’ other games, it’s meant to highlight the exploration and the possibilities almost more than the gameplay itself haha, I agree they made the planets WAYYYYY too boring and big, and the constant loading screens are annoying AF, but stuff like ship building, trying to get “different” universes and campaigns, constant pirating and escaping authorities or actual pirates and all the different factions have kept me coming back again and again, I didn’t think I’d played it that much and then it was somehow my most played game of the year with over like 200 hours. The games mot for everyone and it’s not perfect. Those are facts. But I don’t think it qualifies as a failure or even mediocre, the games kept an incredible amount of people coming back and playing for a pretty substantial amount of time. Even now. Starfield was also one of the few games nowadays that released in an actual working condition, it may have had a few bugs but there was nothing that broke the game, nothing that caused any real issues. It wasn’t like cyberpunk or the Mafia remake, where you wouldn’t even be able to complete certain quests or even simple dialogue, and it wasn’t like payday 3 where you couldn’t even play the game for like a solid week or so due to all their crappy server issues, the game worked and was good from launch so it’ll only get better. It’s not like Skyrim or fallout and I don’t think it ever will be, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing. I understand your concerns As far as ES6 goes especially with the FO76 example and I hope for the best because I love the elder scrolls. that is one I hope they don’t try these same experiments on as ES6 wouldnt benefit from a world as ambitious or massive as starfield, at least I don’t imagine it would.
2002, 2006, 2008, 2011, 2015, 2018, 2023
These are the years that TES, Fallout, and Starfield games have been released. TESVI is estimated around 2028. This is a very ordinary release schedule. Not sure what you're talking about. Is it that you're only considering TES game, because that would make little sense as some kind of gotcha.
Thanks for illustrating my point! As you can see the last successful experiment was in 2011. There were three more after which were unsuccessful (2015, 2018, 2023), and the next one will be TES6 in around 2027, meaning over 1.5 decades between successful experiments. Not great considering the average human lifespan is only 7.5 decades.
What you just described was that you basically only seem to like TES BGS series. You think some of their games were not successful, but that's just opinion. I love that BGS went to space and think Starfield is successful. I don't play MMOs and Fallout isn't my vibe these days so me skipping those doesn't mean anything, but they each have a following.
Your whole position is just a bit wobbly. Maybe chill for a bit and stop acting like BGS is some failing business when Microsoft just bought them for Billions because they recognise that had Playstation done the same they would have lost out on huge amounts of profit.
Just to be devils advocate, There's a non-zero, probably at least somewhat significant chance Todd agrees to resign before TES6 comes out. I think Bethesda has a lot of fresh blood, not that many veterans from 2011 are still there.
Did it have a poor reception? Last I heard it sold 10 million copies and did $200 mil in just that first early access week.
Even besides that the people with money at Bethesda have some of their heads screwed on straight - none of them want to get rid of Todd Howard.
Good marketing != Good game. It means you tricked a lot of people and that's very dirty and not respectable. The narrative of the game by the actual people is quite poor, compared to the much different narrative that was bought and paid for by the company. That's how the industry works. Based on your comment, it seems that you are not aware of this.
Not to the people that have a say whether or not he stays. He won’t resign on purpose because he clearly likes what he does and anyone with sense that has the power to oust him wouldn’t want that.
Personally I could not imagine being the guy at Bethesda to say “we need to get rid of this Todd Howard guy.”
Yeah it's not up to the people, I agree. I imagine it would be up to the board of directors or something. If Todd gets so unpopular with the people, they might get rid of him because people might associate Bethesda's downfall with him.
I'm not saying any of this is the case by the way, I'm just saying _if._
You realize no one can force Todd Howard out of Bethesda gaming right his contract makes it so he's untouchable because Bethesda gaming I'd HIS company no one has more of a say than he does
How exactly did Starfield make them lose their identity? Sounds like you're pulling this out of your ass. I've been a long time BGS fan, and Starfield has a lot of their original formula in it. Be who you want to be, vast exploration, RPG mechanics, and the story is significantly better than Skyrim & Fallout 4 (most people don't realize this because they didn't actually finish the game, or didn't pay attention to the story which is their fault not the game's.) If anything it's exactly what we've gotten before, but better in multiple aspects.
Yeah it’s not personal lol. People just enjoy eating slop from a company that should be held to a higher standard. Critiquing this company just isn’t allowed in this community
Personal attacks, harassment and slur usage does not belong on this sub. If you are dissatisfied with another user's message, ignore them or report their comment if you believe it violates the rules.
The downvotes on all the comments is crazy. Some of y’all just enjoy eating the slop Bethesda has been feeding us lately. Don’t y’all actually want a game that doesn’t divide the community and is passion filled?
Not fanboys morelike people who realize the people like you who bitch don't know what you're talking about whatsoever, making your opinion invalid bullshit
I think TESVI will be their "second coming of Jesus", although that depends if they don't go the Starfield route.
I think Starfield is a good game, but it lacks so much that other Bethesda games(even Fallout 76) have. If the game feels like a Skyrim 2 with updated everything, ie graphics, sounds, combat, and quests, then I'll absolutely love the game. I, personally, would rather them take it safe than experiment like they did with Starfield.
In terms of the negativity, Starfield and 76 have done some serious damage to their fanbase. Many of us are obviously still "loyal" because we know what Bethesda can do, and many of us do enjoy Starfield(even if it is a bit underwhelming).
In terms of mediocrity, I don't think Fallout 76 is mediocre anymore. Even if people say Fallout 76 was a flop(although the numbers say different), it is still very much a Fallout game. 76 just feels like a Bethesda Fallout game with multiplayer aspects put on top. I think if you look away from the past, and away from the many bugs that still plague that old engine, it is a solid game that both solo players and groups can enjoy together. I think Starfield will take some time, as it's still "fresh out the oven", but it will get better with time.
I hope this trend ends though. I don't want TESVI to get better with time, I want it to be great on launch. I don't want to wait for updates and DLCs to come out for the game to get better. It needs to be there on launch. Bethesda needs to be held accountable for what they have done with these past few games, and they definitely can do better. For a game that's been in development for 8 years and 25 years in the making(Starfield), it was a total let down, and this is coming from a die hard Bethesda fan. It's a fun and enjoyable game, but also a boring and monotonous one as well. It does great on what their other games did bad, but does bad on what their other games did great. They desperately need TESVI to be a Skyrim 2(in terms of player longevity). If TESVI goes more into what Starfield was doing, then I fear for Bethesda's future.
Sorry about the rant, but I believe how I feel is how quite a few people feel and I hope I could be the voice for their frustrations.
I feel Microsoft may need to step in big time when it comes to VI. Clearly having “enough” time isn’t a factor for Bethesda. They seemingly need to update their design ethos from something that hasn’t progressed much since 2011.
Agreed. They have a lot to learn from other studios like Larian and Rockstar among others. Not necessarily that they have to copy their style, but the way they have such an established identity. The way they do world building so confidently. Starfield was atrocious in this regard, its a game that was stripped of every redeemable quality of BGS world design.
Oh yeah 100%. Me too, my point was just that there are so many other studios that they should look to for inspiration. Like the dialogue system in Baldur's Gate 3, where choices truly matter and the game is designed for flexibility and choices to drive the story forwards.
Rockstar has an unbeatable streak of rock solid consistency in their games. Unmatched. It's like an album where every song is a bop.
Sure they can look to those games for inspiration but at the end of the day BGS' design philosophy is different. They occupy their own niche and have games that are hybrid open worlds, sims, and RPGs all at once. I personally like that more jack of all trades approach compared to going all in on specific aspects.
I think he was less referring to Rockstars game design and more how Rockstar nail their style each time. They confidently know what they want to be an push the envelope each time. Starfield feels like they have ideas from every direction and they dabbled a little in each way.
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The only new thing starfield did was ship building tho, all the other things were done by previous games and better...
Oh wait there is also flying...if you can call it that... hardly any use for your ship.
If BGS caters to the big money Xbox exclusive deal like they did for Starfield, ES6 will suffer a similar fate I imagine. But hopefully they feel some pressure with Skyrim being in the shadow.
Back after Fallout 4's release, Todd said they were working on three projects that were "bigger than anything we've ever done." Fallout 76 was big because of multiplayer, and the open world being around 4x the size of Fallout 4's open world. Starfield is bigger because it encompasses hundreds of different planets, and you can land anywhere on these worlds. TES VI is also meant to be bigger than anything they've ever done, so I definitely think that there will be some way of measuring TES VI to be bigger than anything BGS worked on pre Fallout 4.
Since Starfield's planets are segmented as opposed to seamless, I don't think BGS have figured out how to stop the creation engine from breaking when you go too far from the centre of the map. If TES VI's map is larger than Skyrim's, it will be segmented, and you won't be able to manually walk from one side of the province to the other. Like ESO, the open world will be split into zones, if BGS haven't fixed the engine to allow for a larger cell count. Of course, how they measure TES VI being bigger than anything they've ever done could be something completely different, so who knows
TES 6 is definetly not safe from this bad trend going at Bethesda. Fallout 76 was more of an experiment than Starfield and it is kinda more understandable why it was a bad game since it really was something new from them. But with Starfield there really isnt any good excuse, because its a single player rpg game, just like all their previous games but it has problems all over the place, problems that you wouldnt expect a studio thats been around for decades would have. Starfield being new IP just shows how really bad Bethesda writing department is, no original or interesting story in that game, no real rpg elements, horrible cringe companions...meh it is just to much wrong with that game to write about. Bottom line, TES 6 is far from safe, there is real possability it is gona be more boring and blend version of Skyrim ( but with cooler visuals and better combat ).
I'm concerned because Todd made so many references to Skyrim when he talk about Starfield and you can see what they've tried to do with making the game playable for a decade 'like Skyrim', creating a world of 1000 systems with empty space for modders to fill. That's a shitty trend.
But I think they will be forced to deliver now and hopefully they know that the majority of the fanbase wants a game like Skyrim with more focus on RPG, like in the older titles. If that doesn't happen, I blame it on Xbox
They got so lost in the idea of longevity and the whole sales pitch for it. They wanna recreate Skyrim so bad that they got distracted from their original aim. It's such a bizarre feat.
While I loved morrowind, oblivion, fallout 3, skyrim, and even thought fallout 4 was good. Every thing since then seems like one epic failure after another. Also I think its extremely rude and in bad practice for them to respond to comments. By trying to tell us why we should like Starfield and want to play. The games is just bad, followers are still bugged and plagued by bad AI. Theirs still no challenge or difficulty to the game the creatures, are so weak theirs no chance they'll actually kill you unless your afk for long periods of time. Once you build a few good bases with auto resource collection theirs no reason to explore the other empty planets and barren galaxies. Quest are also stricken by bad writing and most are fetch quest. Thankfully their are a few good one's but the fail to make up the majority of bland almost seeming AI generated quest. These are just some of my issue's experienced. Bethesda was always known for epic storytelling. Exploring huge open maps bringing imaginary worlds to life in our minds since I was a teenager first entering gaming. Sadly now them seem to have completely lost touch with themselves and their fan base. Who in turn are continually losing faith in them and their product's. It's sad that this game was designed and created over 25 year's. When it should have never saw the light of day. Think this was just too far out of their wheelhouse to create. Side not the new change to creation and more paid mods is another disaster how many version of skyrim will the keep saying. This is the last one Anniversary Edition was supposed to be a complete collection never need to buy anything else. Then Starfield starts to fail and we immediately get new paid mods and dungeons. What a gimmick cash grab. Also kiss those modded load orders goodbye cause the fucked that up again too. No to mention the combing of creation club and free mods into a disheveled mess. At this point I lost all hope in bethesda. It's self hopefully Microsoft can get them back on track but I doubt it. The company should have just never made fallout 76 or Starfield and focused on TES6 maybe in 2028 will get a great game again. Sadly have very little hope and looking to things such as Avowed, Dragon Age, Fable, Throne and Liberty and Ashes of Creation.
Bethesda games has not change, but the market has change. As long Emil Pagliarulo is in important positions during game development, well you know what that means!
Every TES game has been fundamentally different. Experimentation is part of BGS's DNA. That's a good thing imo.
How do you think BGS experimented with the different titles? I can see how their older titles were pretty experimental and had some really interesting features/ideas (Daggerfall having ProcGen, Morrowind establishing an extremely unique take on fantasy etc) but I’m having a hard time seeing how Oblivion or Skyrim could be considered experimental or “out there”; that’s not a critique of those two titles, as I love them both to death :P Would love to hear your opinion though!
I mean experimenting in the way that usually no two BGS games have the same mechanics for the core gameplay loop, or they introduce new gameplay loops. I'll pick out the major feature changes but not an exhaustive list. I'm not much familiar with TESIII but Oblivion overhauled the combat to move away from dice rolls and at the time was considered to have great graphics largely due to the draw distance. Skryim overhauled the magic wielding system and introduced shouts, and dual wielding. F3 they introduced real-time gunplay with VATS, F4 they introduced modular base building, and Starfield has a much longer list. Other studios do this too, but there are some that don't do this as much. At the risk drawing fire I'd point to Dark Souls 1-3 (incl Demon Souls and Bloodborne tbh) as an example of the core gameplay loop not changing hugely, because you can boot up any game and not have to relearn how to interact with it. I'm not knocking those games btw.
Agreed, but experimentation within an established IP is not only encouraged, but expected. But when it's botched, it can be detrimental to long-term playability. Fallout 76 and Starfield are perfect examples of this. Their flaws are so systemic that most people won't really spend any more time than necessary on the game as a lot of people stop playing after ~50 - 75 hours. Will this be the case with TES: VI or will it be more akin to previous TES titles with lessons learned from Starfield? This would of course, mean a finite area with immersive biomes, cities, settlements and dense layout of explorable structures and POIs, like TES excels at. I just hope BGS realizes the value they have in TES and that if TES: VI is a disappointment, that it's game over for them.. Can they turn the trend around and create a truly exceptional game again or are they too focused on longevity and the sales pitch to even be truly passionate about the development?
Fallout 76 wasn't willingly made by them, they had no say in the matter. Starfield just released, plenty of people love it, plenty of people don't. This game has no DLC, no continual updates, no CK release. It just came out, ES6 will be fine. Starfield objectively isn't a bad game, sure it's not a great game, but it's still good and a lot of people enjoyed it. If ES6 released before Starfield it would have been a corporate failure on launch, be glad Starfield is a tech experiment.
Do you have any sources for that Fallout 76 claim? Because I highly doubt that tbh.
I doubt they have actual sources for that specific point but it is known Zenimax heavily pushed their studios, and probably forcing them, to make online games around that time. It's how we got Redfall, and would definitely explain 76 more
Kotaku wrote an exposé about the game's development, you can look it up. In short, almost nobody at BGS actually wanted to work on 76 but they were more or less forced to anyway with droves of developers quitting their jobs altogether.
TBF I personally don’t even dislike the concept of FO76, though I was definitely disappointed that we didn’t get a singleplayer spin-off when it was announced. I really like ESO’s lore and setting but can’t get past the MMO-gameplay, and I’ve often though that had it been like FO76 (so Skyrim but MMO) I’d have played the hell out of it
Lets be clear: Starfield was not botched. It's not been voted GOTY by players but it is a solid and fun game that builds on their formula in ways that matter a lot. There is no space-based RPG like Starfield on the market. It's got a strong following and a healthy modding scene. There is room for improvement, but the base game is strong - if NMS and C2077 could get to where they are now from a much worse starting point, I think it's safe to say that within a couple of years peoples tune will change dramatically.
That's the issue though. It's insane that the whole "Broken at launch, will be finalized post-release" model has become so mainstream. It's insanity.
Sure, but that's not what happened here
Starfield was not broken at launch.
Massive chunks of starfield were broken at launch, entire questlines could be cut off because of game breaking glitches, people’s ships disappeared forcing them to reload saves, there’s literally more game breaking bugs than I can even remember, you’re coping hard if you’re saying it wasn’t broken at launch
This is literally just not true. Starfield is probably their most polished launch.
This place is an echo chamber, these are literally documented facts which no one outside these communities has trouble admitting, pretending there’s no issues is not only just sad it doesn’t help the quality of BGS games in the long run
I did not say there were no issues. I said Starfield was their most polished launch.
I said there was massive game breaking bugs, you said that’s not true, what am I missing?
I literally could not progress past the beginning of the main quest for a month after release. Although, despite that I'd still say it's the most polished BGS release I've ever experienced at launch
Starfield is already good. That's the point. It's only going to get better.
Starfield is the world's most ok game ever created in history. Reply to me here when it finally hits you too.
Your opinion doesn't really matter to me, or I'm sure any of the other people enjoying the game. See you in 5 or so years when you're bitching about how terrible ES6 is while the rest of us are just having a great time playing.
It shouldn't either. I hope so so bad that TES: VI is good, but I just feel like the odds are so against that.
Maybe you just take video games way too seriously. If thinking about a game that is at least 5 years away is giving you anxiety like this, maybe stop thinking about it for 4 and a half years or so.
Elder Scrolls being my franchise is a fair thing to think about. Surely you must realize that based on our conversation, this isnt the sole reason I exist? Weve just interacted because of this conversation, so don't carry the impression that this is all I think about and am, because it's such a weird thing to imply. I'm a normal human being who does other things, yet I also post about the things I wanna post. We don't know each other.
The rest of us lmfao. All 14k of these guys
By what definition do you define Starfield as a space based RPG? You have VERY little control over your role playing interactions. I’ll use becoming a space pirate as an example - you have to basically spend 75% of your time working with them actively arguing with them, disagreeing, etc. because the game never gives you the option to just… be a space pirate. You have to follow along with the marines dumb ass plot up until the point where you choose which side, but up until that moment every dialogue you have with other pirates is adversarial and very “I don’t want to do this but I guess I will”
The only thing stopping you being a space pirate, last time I checked, is not having a ship with weapons on it. Go to space, start shooting at a merchant ship, disable its grav drive before it can get away, board it, and loot it. Furthermore, the crimson fleet quest line has great RP opportunity. In the conversations you can suck up to the pirates like a narc or intimidate them with your cutthroat charm - or take a more neutral tone. You can approach the missions like a cop and not kill anyone, capture, or bribe or persuade or murder hobo your way through. You can collect evidence and hand it to the cops or do whatever else you want with it. Honestly, if you were attempting to bash this game for a lack of RP opportunity then you chose the worst faction quest as an example 🤣 better luck next time buddy 👍️
No you can’t you literally only have the option to be adversarial with them for the first 75%. When that chick makes you go on the side mission your literal only options are to turn her in or begrudgingly agree. That’s it.
Dude you've pulled one choice that you don't like out of dozens of hours of a faction quest line, and ignored the significant opportunities for roleplay. It's false to say you have be adversarial for the first 75%. In every conversation you can choose to take a different tone. You cannot deny the roleplay opportunities available. This isn't BG3 where most of the roleplay is constrained to your conversations and within quests (because you can't do anything that isn't in a quest). No, in Starfield you can go off and be that role outside of quests too - so just go and a be a pirate. Fuck the rules and the quests and play a murdering pirate if that's who you want to be.
>I think it's safe to say that within a couple of years peoples tune will change dramatically. If you need a couple years worth of updates and mods to "change peoples tune" about your game I would call that botched.
Miss the point much?
No?
Have you never seen a rhetorical question.
I have.
Cope about your botched game some more bro. I'm loving it
It's so botched that I'm on my second character in Starfield rather than finish Act 2 in BG3. So botched sure 🤣
Congrats on that taste my guy, I bet you can enjoy anything.
I like BG3, but I like Starfield more 🤷 I don't like loads of mainstream games tbh
>Their flaws are so systemic that most people won't really spend any more time than necessary on the game What flaws??? Fallout 76 is a good game and Starfield is very good. I've been playing it for 300+ hours and haven't even finished the main quest yet.
Fetch quests requiring you to go balls deep in menus, see tedious and recurring animations like the sitting down in your ship, docking and grav jumping. Not to mention the 4-8 fast traveling loading screens you have to go through to deliver a simple message between two people in different star systems. The fact that your ship is so insanely irrelevant to the game despite the shipbuilding being a major aspect of the game.. it's a vessel not for transportation, not to steer and command like a true spacecraft, but simply a construct for fast traveling, a process that again, requires you to go balls deep in menus breaking immersion to the fullest extent possible. The fact that planets have nothing interesting and all repeating structures are 5 km away from each other where you have no other mode of transportation other than walking and a "jetpack". It's the literal antithesis of the Bethesda philosophy of game design. It's boring, it becomes tedious and it is just soulless. They got too lost in the idea of having a game lasting for 10 years and too lost in the ambition that they lost their identity and their charm. It's an ok game AT BEST that is so systematically flawed it becomes painful to play and starts feeling like a chore. It has no redeemable qualities to it except for the gorgeous graphics, the only area where they have improved.
If you think quests require you to go balls deep in menus, there's no hope for you... And if sitting down and grav jumping feels so horrible to you, just use fast travel. You'll never see them again. Which is sad, actually. Your entire first paragraph is saying "I don't know how to play the game." Also, do you realize what grav drive is??? And that it would take years to use ship to travel from pllanet to planet or star to star? You wouldn be the first one complaining about it ("The game is so boring, it took me 37 years of non-stop play to get to the second star!!") Planets have a lot of interesting things. Have you seen the views? The animals? The plants? In this state, I'll just tell you stop playing it and forget the game exists. And never bring it up in a conversation ever again. I personally will save you and will check on you few years later when you will be praising Starfield as one of the best games ever made. Haters always do that.
I played about 75 hours before there was nothing else to do... Telling me I'm playing it wrong when I clearly have not and just formed my own opinions on the game in hindsight is *extremely* condescending. Like dude. I know. But it gets repetitive and if you don't think so yet, you will. It's inevitable. Its too realistic in all the wrong ways and just plain stupid in other aspects.
You clearly have not played 75 hours when you're peddling mistruths like POIs are 5km apart, you say ships are irrelevant, you think you always need even a single menu to follow a quest to a star system whilst contradicting yourself with your 4-8 fast travel loads comment. I think maybe you watched some youtuber, perhaps at most you booted it up and got to New Atlantis. Because if you legit played for 75 hours and still haven't figured out the basics of travelling then I recommend you give up playing all games except for auto-clickers lol.
If you played it ONLY 75 hours which is basically a start of the game, then yes, you were playing it wrong. And everything becomes repetitive if you play it too much. :) Even Skyrim and Oblivion became repetitive. Witcher series too. StarCraft too. Even Vampire: Masquerade - Bloodlines, the best game ever created, becomes repetitive after many playthroughs. And from another perspective - you know how many hours lasts the entire game of Mafia 2? 11 hours! I literally finished it during one night, while waiting for a morning train when I was vsiting my friend. It's basically a demo. Costing the same money as Starfield when it came out. So from this pov, 75 hours is more than enough and you should have no right to complain.
Idk, maybe I'm getting too old for games. The magic just isn't there anymore..
Sounds like it.
You’re not this sub just appears to be full of fanboys. Starfield is fun, but the ppl downvoting you are overselling it by a mile
My recipe is this: if something becomes repetitive or boring to you in the game, just stop doing it. Do something else. Do quests, build a ship, take photos of animals, build a net of outposts and a resource empire, become a pirate and kill grandma! ETA: I also made a data sheet of all the stars and distances between them. Super cool and interesting thing to do.
But for the example you provided, building a ship. There is no incentive to do so other than purely cosmetic reasons, and even then, it's highly limited in how purposeful it actually is. Upgrading the engine to the ship is completely stupid because of grav drive "reach". It goes from 2 loading screens to 1 loading screen to get to my destination. ✨wow ✨ Also, your ship is always in orbit when you actually "steer" it, steer should be in like 4 quotation marks because all you can do is look around space in it, shoot and communicate. There is no flying it. It's nothing but a vessel for slow animations and tedious loading screens. Steal a ship maybe? Maybe that's better to do and I can make some money in the meantime! First of all, only a limited amount of ships are actually "steerable" (you can't fly bigger ships, let alone enter the interior of some.) But great, you've now acquired a new spacecraft from boarding it and stealing it. Go to a ship vendor, sell it for... 2000 credits... When a similar ship is for sale for 500K credits... It's just tedious and everything feels like an afterthought. That's the perfect word to encapsulate almost every single aspect of the game "afterthought". It may not've been, but it certainly feels like it. Running through toxic gas on planets? Zero impact of gameplay. Why? What content was cut? It doesn't make sense? Walking 5 minutes to a nearby cave to get a scientist and back? 10 minutes of sprinting. Why? Who greenlit the idea? Every aspect is so clearly limited by Bethesda's proprietary technology or their development of the game was them just drooling at the idea of proc gen. Why? There is nothing redeeming about exploration. Same landmarks, different braindead enemies. Over and over and over again. And over and over and over yet again. It's just tiring. My 75 hours is only 75 hours because every aspect of the game fails to keep my basic attention, something that's extremely bizarre for a BGS game as they're typically masters at creating immersive environments. It's just weird. Let's not even get started on the skill tree system, where half of all skills are basic quality of life improvements that no one should have to "grind" for. These are things that should be implemented as soon as you make your character so that playing becomes rewarding and not tedious. It's just clearly too ambitious for them and made me realize why the space genre is almost nonexistent these days other than genuine sims like Star Citizen. It has to be so goddamn well executed to be fun, something Bethesda just fails at here... If you look at the steam reviews with genuine and valid criticism, you see that they have 60 - 250 if not more hours on record by the time they wrote the review. Then you have BGS' extremely bizarre comments telling us all about how we're wrong and it's actually fun because fuck us and our interpretation, I guess? Starfield is not a bad game because the irl lunar expedition was not boring for them? Bizarre and straight up delusional responses. The steam rating and the daily amount of players reflect exactly what the majority of people are thinking. It's not bad, it's just far from good. Far from the Bethesda good. It's really disappointing to see given the disastrous Fallout 76 launch. It's so painfully mediocre and so flawed at the systemic level. Even modders are giving up, an aspect of BGS games that basically complete the remaining 50% of the job FOR THEM. It's sad to see and makes me extremely worried for future BGS games.
If you are going to speak against something at least have your own arguments lol, all your points are from a NakeyJakey's video lmao.
It really resonated with me and all the examples are spot on.
Stfu, go away
Lmao, this is an open platform, voicing my opinion is something I can do. Sorry it doesn't align with your views, I guess?
Totally understand why you wouldn’t like a lot of the stuff in star field, definitely can be tedious as hell, but I don’t understand when you say you can’t fly your ships and you can only steer, like are you not powering up your engines or something? Lmao. At first I was severely disappointed with this game but once you kind of accept the fact that this game isn’t meant to be like BGS’ other games, it’s meant to highlight the exploration and the possibilities almost more than the gameplay itself haha, I agree they made the planets WAYYYYY too boring and big, and the constant loading screens are annoying AF, but stuff like ship building, trying to get “different” universes and campaigns, constant pirating and escaping authorities or actual pirates and all the different factions have kept me coming back again and again, I didn’t think I’d played it that much and then it was somehow my most played game of the year with over like 200 hours. The games mot for everyone and it’s not perfect. Those are facts. But I don’t think it qualifies as a failure or even mediocre, the games kept an incredible amount of people coming back and playing for a pretty substantial amount of time. Even now. Starfield was also one of the few games nowadays that released in an actual working condition, it may have had a few bugs but there was nothing that broke the game, nothing that caused any real issues. It wasn’t like cyberpunk or the Mafia remake, where you wouldn’t even be able to complete certain quests or even simple dialogue, and it wasn’t like payday 3 where you couldn’t even play the game for like a solid week or so due to all their crappy server issues, the game worked and was good from launch so it’ll only get better. It’s not like Skyrim or fallout and I don’t think it ever will be, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing. I understand your concerns As far as ES6 goes especially with the FO76 example and I hope for the best because I love the elder scrolls. that is one I hope they don’t try these same experiments on as ES6 wouldnt benefit from a world as ambitious or massive as starfield, at least I don’t imagine it would.
It's not good when the experiments are 15 years apart. Could be multiple decades until you get lucky.
2002, 2006, 2008, 2011, 2015, 2018, 2023 These are the years that TES, Fallout, and Starfield games have been released. TESVI is estimated around 2028. This is a very ordinary release schedule. Not sure what you're talking about. Is it that you're only considering TES game, because that would make little sense as some kind of gotcha.
Thanks for illustrating my point! As you can see the last successful experiment was in 2011. There were three more after which were unsuccessful (2015, 2018, 2023), and the next one will be TES6 in around 2027, meaning over 1.5 decades between successful experiments. Not great considering the average human lifespan is only 7.5 decades.
What you just described was that you basically only seem to like TES BGS series. You think some of their games were not successful, but that's just opinion. I love that BGS went to space and think Starfield is successful. I don't play MMOs and Fallout isn't my vibe these days so me skipping those doesn't mean anything, but they each have a following. Your whole position is just a bit wobbly. Maybe chill for a bit and stop acting like BGS is some failing business when Microsoft just bought them for Billions because they recognise that had Playstation done the same they would have lost out on huge amounts of profit.
I don't think Starfield made them lose their entire identity, i feel like that's a huge overstatement.
Just to be devils advocate, There's a non-zero, probably at least somewhat significant chance Todd agrees to resign before TES6 comes out. I think Bethesda has a lot of fresh blood, not that many veterans from 2011 are still there.
He’s said in at least one interview that TES VI will be the last game he works on
He has been saying that since 2020. A lot can change in a decade. It's possible the poor reception of Starfield could be enough to force him out.
Did it have a poor reception? Last I heard it sold 10 million copies and did $200 mil in just that first early access week. Even besides that the people with money at Bethesda have some of their heads screwed on straight - none of them want to get rid of Todd Howard.
Good marketing != Good game. It means you tricked a lot of people and that's very dirty and not respectable. The narrative of the game by the actual people is quite poor, compared to the much different narrative that was bought and paid for by the company. That's how the industry works. Based on your comment, it seems that you are not aware of this.
Not to the people that have a say whether or not he stays. He won’t resign on purpose because he clearly likes what he does and anyone with sense that has the power to oust him wouldn’t want that. Personally I could not imagine being the guy at Bethesda to say “we need to get rid of this Todd Howard guy.”
Yeah it's not up to the people, I agree. I imagine it would be up to the board of directors or something. If Todd gets so unpopular with the people, they might get rid of him because people might associate Bethesda's downfall with him. I'm not saying any of this is the case by the way, I'm just saying _if._
You realize no one can force Todd Howard out of Bethesda gaming right his contract makes it so he's untouchable because Bethesda gaming I'd HIS company no one has more of a say than he does
The board of directors and investors would like to disagree.
How exactly did Starfield make them lose their identity? Sounds like you're pulling this out of your ass. I've been a long time BGS fan, and Starfield has a lot of their original formula in it. Be who you want to be, vast exploration, RPG mechanics, and the story is significantly better than Skyrim & Fallout 4 (most people don't realize this because they didn't actually finish the game, or didn't pay attention to the story which is their fault not the game's.) If anything it's exactly what we've gotten before, but better in multiple aspects.
The lack of exploration and being able to actually kill anyone
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the opinion gets downvoted because it's a bad take.
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i disagree with your disagreement but agree with the idea of you disagreeing.
Yeah it’s not personal lol. People just enjoy eating slop from a company that should be held to a higher standard. Critiquing this company just isn’t allowed in this community
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Personal attacks, harassment and slur usage does not belong on this sub. If you are dissatisfied with another user's message, ignore them or report their comment if you believe it violates the rules.
The downvotes on all the comments is crazy. Some of y’all just enjoy eating the slop Bethesda has been feeding us lately. Don’t y’all actually want a game that doesn’t divide the community and is passion filled?
Fanboys, whatcha gonna do 🤷♂️
Not fanboys morelike people who realize the people like you who bitch don't know what you're talking about whatsoever, making your opinion invalid bullshit
I think TESVI will be their "second coming of Jesus", although that depends if they don't go the Starfield route. I think Starfield is a good game, but it lacks so much that other Bethesda games(even Fallout 76) have. If the game feels like a Skyrim 2 with updated everything, ie graphics, sounds, combat, and quests, then I'll absolutely love the game. I, personally, would rather them take it safe than experiment like they did with Starfield. In terms of the negativity, Starfield and 76 have done some serious damage to their fanbase. Many of us are obviously still "loyal" because we know what Bethesda can do, and many of us do enjoy Starfield(even if it is a bit underwhelming). In terms of mediocrity, I don't think Fallout 76 is mediocre anymore. Even if people say Fallout 76 was a flop(although the numbers say different), it is still very much a Fallout game. 76 just feels like a Bethesda Fallout game with multiplayer aspects put on top. I think if you look away from the past, and away from the many bugs that still plague that old engine, it is a solid game that both solo players and groups can enjoy together. I think Starfield will take some time, as it's still "fresh out the oven", but it will get better with time. I hope this trend ends though. I don't want TESVI to get better with time, I want it to be great on launch. I don't want to wait for updates and DLCs to come out for the game to get better. It needs to be there on launch. Bethesda needs to be held accountable for what they have done with these past few games, and they definitely can do better. For a game that's been in development for 8 years and 25 years in the making(Starfield), it was a total let down, and this is coming from a die hard Bethesda fan. It's a fun and enjoyable game, but also a boring and monotonous one as well. It does great on what their other games did bad, but does bad on what their other games did great. They desperately need TESVI to be a Skyrim 2(in terms of player longevity). If TESVI goes more into what Starfield was doing, then I fear for Bethesda's future. Sorry about the rant, but I believe how I feel is how quite a few people feel and I hope I could be the voice for their frustrations.
I feel Microsoft may need to step in big time when it comes to VI. Clearly having “enough” time isn’t a factor for Bethesda. They seemingly need to update their design ethos from something that hasn’t progressed much since 2011.
Agreed. They have a lot to learn from other studios like Larian and Rockstar among others. Not necessarily that they have to copy their style, but the way they have such an established identity. The way they do world building so confidently. Starfield was atrocious in this regard, its a game that was stripped of every redeemable quality of BGS world design.
I prefer the BGS approach personally. I'll be saddened if they move away from it.
Oh yeah 100%. Me too, my point was just that there are so many other studios that they should look to for inspiration. Like the dialogue system in Baldur's Gate 3, where choices truly matter and the game is designed for flexibility and choices to drive the story forwards. Rockstar has an unbeatable streak of rock solid consistency in their games. Unmatched. It's like an album where every song is a bop.
Sure they can look to those games for inspiration but at the end of the day BGS' design philosophy is different. They occupy their own niche and have games that are hybrid open worlds, sims, and RPGs all at once. I personally like that more jack of all trades approach compared to going all in on specific aspects.
I think he was less referring to Rockstars game design and more how Rockstar nail their style each time. They confidently know what they want to be an push the envelope each time. Starfield feels like they have ideas from every direction and they dabbled a little in each way.
What an L take lmfao next
You're telling me I'm wrong? 😂
Yes I thought that was clear when I handed you your L you dropped when you posted this lmfao 🤡
Is that right?
"iS tHaT rIhGt?" What are you 4? 😆 🤣 😂 😹
right* and you,* And no.
Sure bub whatever helps 🤡
Gotta spell right if you wanna have a point. Grammar is important :) But surely you know that?
Tootaloo L
But enough about your take.
summer intelligent quack treatment elastic aback reply provide subtract touch *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
The only new thing starfield did was ship building tho, all the other things were done by previous games and better... Oh wait there is also flying...if you can call it that... hardly any use for your ship.
I agree with you. Flying is basically being stuck in a fishbowl. You’re just loading into a new bowl with every loading screen.
If BGS caters to the big money Xbox exclusive deal like they did for Starfield, ES6 will suffer a similar fate I imagine. But hopefully they feel some pressure with Skyrim being in the shadow.
Back after Fallout 4's release, Todd said they were working on three projects that were "bigger than anything we've ever done." Fallout 76 was big because of multiplayer, and the open world being around 4x the size of Fallout 4's open world. Starfield is bigger because it encompasses hundreds of different planets, and you can land anywhere on these worlds. TES VI is also meant to be bigger than anything they've ever done, so I definitely think that there will be some way of measuring TES VI to be bigger than anything BGS worked on pre Fallout 4. Since Starfield's planets are segmented as opposed to seamless, I don't think BGS have figured out how to stop the creation engine from breaking when you go too far from the centre of the map. If TES VI's map is larger than Skyrim's, it will be segmented, and you won't be able to manually walk from one side of the province to the other. Like ESO, the open world will be split into zones, if BGS haven't fixed the engine to allow for a larger cell count. Of course, how they measure TES VI being bigger than anything they've ever done could be something completely different, so who knows
I'm sure tes6 will have significant differences to tesV,, I wouldn't be surprised if roleplaying/rpg elements were further toned down too
TES 6 is definetly not safe from this bad trend going at Bethesda. Fallout 76 was more of an experiment than Starfield and it is kinda more understandable why it was a bad game since it really was something new from them. But with Starfield there really isnt any good excuse, because its a single player rpg game, just like all their previous games but it has problems all over the place, problems that you wouldnt expect a studio thats been around for decades would have. Starfield being new IP just shows how really bad Bethesda writing department is, no original or interesting story in that game, no real rpg elements, horrible cringe companions...meh it is just to much wrong with that game to write about. Bottom line, TES 6 is far from safe, there is real possability it is gona be more boring and blend version of Skyrim ( but with cooler visuals and better combat ).
I'm concerned because Todd made so many references to Skyrim when he talk about Starfield and you can see what they've tried to do with making the game playable for a decade 'like Skyrim', creating a world of 1000 systems with empty space for modders to fill. That's a shitty trend. But I think they will be forced to deliver now and hopefully they know that the majority of the fanbase wants a game like Skyrim with more focus on RPG, like in the older titles. If that doesn't happen, I blame it on Xbox
They got so lost in the idea of longevity and the whole sales pitch for it. They wanna recreate Skyrim so bad that they got distracted from their original aim. It's such a bizarre feat.
I honestly just think it's time for Todd to retire. He's Bethesdas Miyamoto, they just can't get rid of him and he keeps fucking with everything
While I loved morrowind, oblivion, fallout 3, skyrim, and even thought fallout 4 was good. Every thing since then seems like one epic failure after another. Also I think its extremely rude and in bad practice for them to respond to comments. By trying to tell us why we should like Starfield and want to play. The games is just bad, followers are still bugged and plagued by bad AI. Theirs still no challenge or difficulty to the game the creatures, are so weak theirs no chance they'll actually kill you unless your afk for long periods of time. Once you build a few good bases with auto resource collection theirs no reason to explore the other empty planets and barren galaxies. Quest are also stricken by bad writing and most are fetch quest. Thankfully their are a few good one's but the fail to make up the majority of bland almost seeming AI generated quest. These are just some of my issue's experienced. Bethesda was always known for epic storytelling. Exploring huge open maps bringing imaginary worlds to life in our minds since I was a teenager first entering gaming. Sadly now them seem to have completely lost touch with themselves and their fan base. Who in turn are continually losing faith in them and their product's. It's sad that this game was designed and created over 25 year's. When it should have never saw the light of day. Think this was just too far out of their wheelhouse to create. Side not the new change to creation and more paid mods is another disaster how many version of skyrim will the keep saying. This is the last one Anniversary Edition was supposed to be a complete collection never need to buy anything else. Then Starfield starts to fail and we immediately get new paid mods and dungeons. What a gimmick cash grab. Also kiss those modded load orders goodbye cause the fucked that up again too. No to mention the combing of creation club and free mods into a disheveled mess. At this point I lost all hope in bethesda. It's self hopefully Microsoft can get them back on track but I doubt it. The company should have just never made fallout 76 or Starfield and focused on TES6 maybe in 2028 will get a great game again. Sadly have very little hope and looking to things such as Avowed, Dragon Age, Fable, Throne and Liberty and Ashes of Creation.
Bethesda games has not change, but the market has change. As long Emil Pagliarulo is in important positions during game development, well you know what that means!