It probably will be just like every big bethesda launch title and you bet it’s going to be buggy too, but guess what, I don’t mind because I’m going to mod that sucker until it’s good enough for me.
And it still going to sell like crazy because there is no other “average” bethesda-like game on the market, especially not spaceship/SF-flavored. I wish there was cuz I know I’ll be annoyed by usual bethesda issues and I don’t have faith in the modding scene to fix it properly (since they never did it for me for FO4 or skyrim), but its still going to be without competition so ¯\(ツ)/¯
Even if it isn’t that good, I got it for free with my new graphics card so I won’t be that disappointed anyway. But I’m still really excited to try it out.
I don’t have faith in the modding scene to fix it properly (since they never did it for me for FO4 or skyrim)
Sounds like you need to learn how to make your own. The toolset isn’t very difficult to learn and can do practically everything you’d want to do mechanically to the game. Most of the mods I use are self made, because stuff I can download generally isn’t perfect. They do too much or not enough and it’s very rare that I find something that is perfectly what I want. So I make it myself.
I have dabbled in modding actually but only enough to know that I don’t have the time or patience to make the big mods that I’d like to see, or that people with thousands of more hours of experience modding these games haven’t managed to complete.
For example, no matter how much modding effort you put into combat, it’s still only ever going to be classic floaty bethesda combat. No matter how much you try to improve magic, it’s never going to become Dragons Dogma or Kingdoms of Amalur, ya know. No matter how many settlement overhaul or custom NPCs I add to fallout, it’s still going to feel soulless and pointless to me, and no matter how many tents or frostbite effects you add to skyrim, it won’t become as immersive as Outward.
Mods can improve what is already there but in my experience, they can never replace or rework core foundations of games, either because the modders don’t have enough time and experience to do it (resulting in janky or unbalanced messes), or because the engine/API doesn’t support it.
Fair points but I do have issue with the combat stuff; I can’t remember the name of it, but the last time I was playing I had found a mod that made combat exactly like Dark Souls. It was a serious game changer.
If you could remember the name I’d like to give it a try but I am veeerryyy skeptical its any good since the environment, gear progression, player abilities and enemy movesets haven’t been designed to fit the dark souls style combat. Just having some form of stagger would be a nice improvement though.
That’s not for me. Not gonna pay AAA prices for a game I have to spend hours of my own time fixing their mistakes. He’ll I’d have to learn a whole new skill.
In addition to what others have said I also suspect that being a console exclusive has made some people be very critical of it. I’m not a big bethesda fan but what I have seen so far looks great and I’m looking forward to play it.
Then you should know the content quality of their games have gone steadily down since Morrowind, as they have prioritized trend-chasing over, pretty much, everything else.
It culminated in 76’s concept and I highly doubt they are done with it.
Their games have gotten wide as the ocean and shallow as a puddle. The mechanics and quest design are so simplified and shallow. Skyrim and Fallout 4 are more like action games with some light RPG elements. As noted by the comment below, they’re chasing trends. Newer games can’t compare to options you have in New Vegas or even Morrowind.
The studio has changed. Just because Fallout 4 wasn’t a “true RPG” doesn’t mean I didn’t have nigh on 400 hours of novel joy with it, maybe even because it wasn’t just another core Bethesda RPG but because it was something new, a new kind of looting and crafting experience in that same large, dynamic open world that Bethesda could bring through. Morrowind was over 20 years ago. Bethesda isn’t the one making those kinds of games anymore.
Have the games gotten shallower as RPGs? Sure. Fucking pac man is shallow at this point, does that mean everyone should hate on it en masse? If you don’t like the direction Bethesda is going that’s completely understandable, but it just seems absurd that people come out of the woodwork in these threads to just poop on a game that isn’t even out yet. Save that for when it releases and it does or doesn’t meet your expectations, as of now it just sounds like everybody is trying to get as entrenched as possible in their prejudice.
Bethesda games are buggy, what an old meme. It’s more of a meme than a true criticism now because most games have bugs, especially ones as large as Bethesda games, and even on launch I’ve played other Bethesda games and enjoyed myself just fine. It’s good to be cautiously skeptical and not pre order, you should be skeptical, but swinging all the way past that to being hard-line negative is not the right answer either.
And I know you personally are not reflecting all of these views, your comment just comes off as supportive of both genuine and over the top memetic criticisms due to replying in a seemingly justifying manner to someone confused about the buggy game comments. When it comes to those sorts of comments I’m talking generally about what I’ve seen from people on this platform.
I’m not saying Starfield will be an old Bethesda return to form or bug free on release, I’m just saying be cautious, not completely pedal to the metal negative, and accept that Bethesda as it was is dead.
At the risk of sounding like a cynical bastard, I’m gonna address some of your points.
Just let me start off with: If you enjoy the games, great. More power to you.
The lack of depth isn’t just reserved to the RPG mechanics. The story, the dialog, the characters… everything is lacking in depth. All the “Environmental Story Telling” in the world can’t make up for the neglected writing.
And everything that has been added isn’t new by any stretch of the imagination. It’s all borrowed from other current franchises, then half-assed and shoveled in by Bethesda. The loot system being one of the few things that actually works as intended.
Pac-Man is old as balls and I haven’t seen anyone trying to pass it off as something new. Hell, even The Legend of Zelda series still follow the exact same premise of the very first game on the NES. The sequels get bigger, smoother and more beautiful. But it’s still the same game at it’s core, because it actually works.
Next point: All games launch buggy. Yep, and it has become a bit of a meme with Bethesda for a reason. Their newest games still have the same game-breaking bugs in them as Morrowind did. Some have even gotten worse. The modding community are literally fixing the same stuff, every title. Which is amazing, as Beth keeps updating their crappy Engine, but at no point in 21 years did they take the time to iron this shit out.
I do agree that we shouldn’t be shitting on a game before it comes out. But it’s not like people have zero idea what they are in for. From what has been shown, Starfield just looks like Fallout 4 with a fresh coat of paint. And there is a bit of a track-record to back most of the assumptions up.
As i said: If you like the road they have been taking with their games and you enjoy them. Keep enjoying them.
I think there’s just a general sense of disappointment from a lot of old players. And it builds up fast in the echo-chambers of the internet and can come off as aggressive even when it wasn’t the intention. And it works both ways. Dear lord, have I met some angry people defending games, simply because they can’t fathom the idea that they might just like playing a ‘bad game.’
I understand your position as well, I think we just need to have more moderate discussions and less going to extremes.
I didn’t address the writing and dialogue of the games because those are absolutely getting the short end of the stick in terms of what Bethesda is spending their resources on, but I found the systems that they put work into in Fallout 4 worthy enough of that time spent instead, and I think that says more about my preferences of what I like in a game than it really does about if Bethesda games are “better” or not this way.
I tend to prefer moment to moment gameplay and I found Fallout 4’s complex interlocking loop of wanting to build a settlement and modify my equipment, leading to tracking down certain materials and identifying where they may be logically found, to going there on foot, to looting the place systematically and engaging the enemies with the weapons and armor I modified and have personal attachment to, to managing my inventory with an investment and thought that never mattered as much in previous Bethesda titles, etc.
That whole loop and set of mechanics that play into each other added an incredible wealth of what I consider more moment to moment gameplay depth than just enjoying the wider possibilities of dialogue options in past Bethesda titles.
Even at its best good old days Bethesda writing doesn’t really compare to other games much more focused on writing (not going to mention New Vegas here because Obsidian is one of those devs better at writing than Bethesda). Bethesda games are always more than the sum of their parts.
My point about Pac Man is more that you don’t dislike the game’s lack of depth in certain areas just for its own sake, but because you’re comparing it to the studio’s past. When Pac Man Championship Edition and DX released, those
had favorable receptions because they took the arcadey roots of the franchise to their logical conclusion instead of swapping to more accessible gameplay trends as Bethesda did.
Not an invalid criticism, but not the only thing people should be mentioning in some of these comments as if that’s what makes the game “bad”.
And if you really think Starfield is going to be Fallout 4 with just a new coat of paint… That’s just disingenuous. There’s already more than enough changes in new mechanics and systems that didn’t exist in FO4 aside from the entire new universe and premise that’s more than simply a coat of paint.
I do hear what you’re saying though and I appreciate acknowledging some of the parts people skip over thinking about just to hit the low hanging fruit that have been brought up in every thread about a Bethesda game since time immemorial, adding nothing new to the discussion.
In my personal opinion, I think what irks me the most is that all of Bethesdas missteps are fairly easily fixable. They just seem to refuse to do so for some reason.
A bit more focus on the overall writing would go a long way and wouldn’t have to interfere with the gameplay in the least for people who don’t care. It’s an intricate part of world-building for those that do enjoy it and serves to drive the player forward. Also helps the ‘suspension of disbelief’ and all that.
They don’t need to reach the heights of the old CRPG makers of the 90’s. Just make sure your “Antagonist” has a proper response when you put in an option to ask him Why he’s doing what he’s doing, you know? Stuff like that. As well as maybe not retconning the timeline of the universe just to fit an inconsequential quest-line and then recon it again in the next game… Stick to the established lore.
Secondly: Better implementation of a few new/borrowed features, like base building, that might fit the game. Instead of haphazardly throwing everything currently trending at the wall in the hope that some of it sticks. Take one thing and do it proper, otherwise just don’t do it at all.
Then there’s the Radiant-Quests in F4. This is just a poor excuse so as to not bother with making actual side-quests. There is a limit to how far they can execute their motto of “Keep it simple, stupid.” This is one of those limits.
There’s probably a couple of other things I’m forgetting. But I feel these little changes would help elevate Beth’ just a bit out of the meme-pit they’re currently in.
Bethesda makes well liked games, yes. But they have a track record of their games coming out as complete buggy messes that need 6-12 months to be in a decent state.
Could be in this case that Microsoft has realized how important this game is to their console efforts and the delays have been an effort to avoid a repeat of Bethesda’s typical. I wouldn’t be too surprised. I’d recommend being wary until the game is out. Waiting won’t hurt anyone.
Given how modern AAA games are and Bethesda’s recent track history, it’s not negative to be skeptical, it’s smart.
Especially since despite Microsoft watching over them and helping them to have the most “bug free launch in history” it’s still probably going to be a hot mess for weeks to a month after launch. I want to be pleasantly surprised, but I’m not getting my hopes up.
Plus, the recent release of Baldur’s Gate 3 with no microtransactions or season passes, etc. has gotten peoples’ standards up, and given that Microsoft paid a lot of money to buy Bethesda, we’re aware that they’re going to have to make that money back somehow, and will probably give into the temptation to do some really player unfriendly things to do it.
Bethesda’s been going all in on surprisingly expensive microtransactions for really tiny amounts of content, like in Fallout 4 and 76, and it wouldn’t be shocking for them to continue in that direction. People aren’t being mindlessly negative, they’re looking at current and past trends and making an educated guess about the future.
Bethesda’s been going all in on surprisingly expensive microtransactions for really tiny amounts of content, like in Fallout 4 and 76, and it wouldn’t be shocking for them to continue in that direction.
This isn’t even new. Bethesda literally set the standard for overpriced MTX with the god damn horse armor in Oblivion for $7.50. That was the first time in history the microtransaction was used and it garnered much the same response as they do now.
So how does that lead to so then there’s only negative things to say? It is, once again, not out yet. I’m starting to dislike being in any community around games, because everyone appears to just hate games. It’s exhausting.
I own every game they’ve ever released, but the expectation they’ve built over the last 20 years is that their games spend a year being trash, at least
Because - and this is the only real answer you’ll get - Starfield is “cool” and “normies” are looking forward to it. Therefore, the “real gamers” must hate it, ESPECIALLY before actually playing it.
Same shit you see in any niche community. Buncha nerds hating on anything too big or popular.
I’m sure that drives a good chunk of it, but it’s more likely that there are a lot of people that have had their fill of Bethesda games that all basically play the same, just in different settings, and those people tend to be in nerdier spots like this. Feels a little dorky to just blame it all on fun-hating nerds haha, what a coincidence that all the people that disagree with you are just mad losers!
Edit: Going back to this comment after Starfield came out and yeah, it’s about what I expected. Skyrim in space lol. Can totally understand why people are underwhelmed or annoyed.
Honestly mate? Not at all. I’m concerned about Starfield because of Bethesda’s track record since Fallout 4, and in particular, their constant attempts to introduce paid ‘mods’ to their games through the creation club (which are always overpriced for tiny amounts of content) as well as how broken their games have been at launch since Morrowind. When my PC, which can run Baldur’s Gate 3 on max settings, can’t run Oblivion without mods without regular crashes, then there’s a big problem.
I want Starfield to be good. But Bethesda do not make good games. They make broad games, but there’s no depth, and what is there is fairly consistently buggy. They have the Pokemon problem though, where people are willing to give them a pass because of the big name. I guarantee you, if a smaller developer released games in the state that Bethesda does, their games would be (rightfully) panned.
Successful and good are completely different and unrelated metrics. Fifty Shades of Grey was extremely successful, but no one in their right mind would ever call it good. Psychonauts was met with universal acclaim, and is widely considered to be one of the best games of all time, and yet it was a complete flop and needed more than a decade to get a sequel.
Bethesda games are extremely successful. They are not good games, and their success is not a good thing. Bethesda kicked off microtransactions in 2007 with Horse Armour. This decision completely fucked the wider industry. Not a fan.
So…that’s your personal taste. Fifty Shades of Grey wouldn’t have been successful if no one liked it, and we can quantify some form of quality via review scores. Some of Bethesda’s games have reviewed phenomenally well, especially in as large of a bucket as the past 20 years of their history. If I was the sole dictator of what was good, no one would be playing the latest Assassin’s Creed game or Hades, but plenty of people love those games; the majority would say they’re great, and we can measure that to some degree.
No, you can measure it in things like sales and review scores. Sure, they also put out games like Fallout 76 and Wolfenstein: Young Blood, but two decades is enough to capture Skyrim and Fallout 3.
two decades is enough to capture Skyrim and Fallout 3.
So a decent but by no means amazing game and a complete turd? Not really helping your case here very much, IMO. The last truly great game Bethesda made was Morrowind, and I will die on this hill.
I really didn’t like Skyrim, Fallout 3, Oblivion, Fallout 4, or 76. Still playing Morrowind and New Vegas though. I could go on about why for a looooooooong time but really don’t care to. Suffice to say there are plenty of people (obviously) that are not happy with those games. I bought them all too so that would show up in sales data. Shame on me, I guess. I’ve been burned enough times that I’m not even going to bother being excited about this one.
But there are also tons of people who’ve been plenty pleased with those games, as you can see on the long tails of their sales and how many concurrent players they retain to this day. You’re the odd one out on those heavy hitters. Not so much on 76, and to a lesser extent, 4.
It’s a different game. I go back and enjoy FNV still and FO4 as well because it scratches a different itch. The looting, crafting, settlement construction, etc. are executed much much better than FNV or 3, or otherwise are entirely new mechanics. It’s a whole different thing, it’s the studio pedigree and franchise the games belong to that allow these criticisms to continue on even when you’re comparing games that are radically different beneath the surface.
You know, BG3 is a great experience overall, but I don’t think it’s a great gaming experience. I’ve experienced at least a handful of softlocks that forced me to rewind a decent amount of playtime… and I don’t really think I’m playing in a way that should break the game.
When I buy a Bethesda game, I know what I’m getting into. People bitch, but like you said, it’s the familiarity I’m going for.
And you know the modding scene is going to be good in a year or so.
Ultimately I don’t understand all the bickering. I don’t like Subway or McDonald’s, but I also don’t rant that they are no good because they don’t have lasagna on the menu.
Hyping up old features as if they’re groundbreaking is a proud Bethesda tradition. I still remember laughing at their pre-release hype around the Radiant quest randomizer in Skyrim, which is virtually identical to the quest randomizer that Daggerfall had been built around fifteen years prior.
i like modding as much as the next gal but this type of relationship bethesda has with their fans is not good, at all, and i never see anyone ever mention it
People talk about it all the time. Longtime fans just don’t care. I’ve been playing these since Daggerfall. Bethesda Softworks makes a very particular kind of game this is very appealing to some of us, and nobody else makes them like that, not that I’m aware of. You think Skyrim was buggy on release? It’s got nothing on Daggerfall, but I loved it anyway.
Mods make the game better, give them a longevity they wouldn’t otherwise have. Skyrim with Frostfall and a needs mod is almost my dream game. But I was perfectly satisfied with the game on Day 1.
Im no stranger to daggerfall either but that just highlights the problem with the company but some fanatics who blindly follow then
Their games don’t have to be buggy messes till modders do bestesdas job for them, mods should primarily enhance, not fix.
And these people who don’t care (as you that is) are one key problem why bethesdas and other companys launch their games like an alpha they’ll never fix (hows their ducttape held severly outdated engine gonna cripple this title I wonder)
We have multiple generations of developers releasing like this. With a few rare exceptions (which are the only games from 15+ years ago most people remember), all games release buggy. Even on console, for every Super Mario Bros. that played the way it was supposed to, there were ten unplayably buggy examples of licensed shovelware. And half of “Nintendo Hard” was just that these games were janky as fuck.
Games are hard to make. Ridiculously huge and complex games are even harder to make. If you think you can do better, please do so.
dont you see the inherit problem that these devs all themselves created with the increasing cost, increasing scope, increasingly forcing bigger retention spans? these games dont need to be this needlessly huge and even than there is no need to have them almost broken (have you SEEN how cd project red always releases their games?)
i never said it was that much better back than, its just much easier to have all of this garbage available than it was back than cause now its flooding the online stores
and of course “do it better yourself than”, i dont have to be a mastercoder to recognise subpar quality, i dont need to be a masterchef to know when something tastes bad
It’s not good that the games are broken and they are relying on modders to fix them. It would be totally fine if they released a fully functioning thematic sandbox for modders to play in though.
The thing about Bethesda games is that their modding tools are far and away from any other game, making serious improvements much more accessible. That’s one of the major draws of them.
I just wish every game didn’t have an unofficial patch requirement to keep it from crashing too often.
These are all things that have existed in all of their RPGs since Arena. These aren’t empty promises, but they’re also not something to be super hyped on.
I’m just concerned and will wait for reviews before buying (like everyone should). Bethesda has a reputation for being slow to fix games and having lots of bugs and crashes at release. And even then, they patch them up to being playable and leave the rest for modders to fix.
What makes you think they stick with their games? They fix bugs for about a year or so after release and move on, just like any other studio. They fix stuff in re-releases but you have to pay for that.
Fair enough. F76 was a shit show. But I have high hopes both because Starfield is a single player game and because a multiplayer Fallout was always a terrible idea anyway
Every new piece of info I see about this game just tells me exactly what I was expecting. Skyrim/Fallout but with a new coat of paint. The only thing actually new and has me excited beyond knowing they generally make fun games is the space combat shit. And frankly, I’m more inclined to think it’s going to be the jankiest, most broken part of the game considering it’s still on the creation engine and vehicles have never been very good on it. But I would love to be wrong.
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its gonna be so completely average
It probably will be just like every big bethesda launch title and you bet it’s going to be buggy too, but guess what, I don’t mind because I’m going to mod that sucker until it’s good enough for me.
That’s the beauty of Bethesda titles.
im gonna wait at least several months until it goes on sale. and that way all the good mods will have already been developed
don’t buy launch day, and don’t pay full price, wait for reviews
That isn’t a beauty, it’s a deficiency. Why do players need to fix Bethesda’s damn game?
No game should be buggy, of course, but since I have access to the devkit and console, whatever breaks in game, I can fix.
Compare that to Cybepunk 2077, which is still a buggy pile of garbage, and that game I can not fix since there are no distro of tools to do so.
It’s not optimal either way, but the former I can work with and the latter I can not.
I could not disagree harder. Bethesda puts a ton of work into making their games as extensible as possible and I think that’s not a deficiency at all.
Given that its the same engine over and over and over again; I don’t think they put that much work into making it extensible anymore. “It just works.”
Everyone uses the same engine over and over. Starting from scratch instead of iterating on your previous engine is the exception, not the norm.
Sure but I wouldn’t call
hard work since it has always been like that.
It absolutely is.
If you don’t make extensibility a core philosophy every step of the way, it disappears very quickly.
And it still going to sell like crazy because there is no other “average” bethesda-like game on the market, especially not spaceship/SF-flavored. I wish there was cuz I know I’ll be annoyed by usual bethesda issues and I don’t have faith in the modding scene to fix it properly (since they never did it for me for FO4 or skyrim), but its still going to be without competition so ¯\(ツ)/¯
Even if it isn’t that good, I got it for free with my new graphics card so I won’t be that disappointed anyway. But I’m still really excited to try it out.
Sounds like you need to learn how to make your own. The toolset isn’t very difficult to learn and can do practically everything you’d want to do mechanically to the game. Most of the mods I use are self made, because stuff I can download generally isn’t perfect. They do too much or not enough and it’s very rare that I find something that is perfectly what I want. So I make it myself.
I have dabbled in modding actually but only enough to know that I don’t have the time or patience to make the big mods that I’d like to see, or that people with thousands of more hours of experience modding these games haven’t managed to complete.
For example, no matter how much modding effort you put into combat, it’s still only ever going to be classic floaty bethesda combat. No matter how much you try to improve magic, it’s never going to become Dragons Dogma or Kingdoms of Amalur, ya know. No matter how many settlement overhaul or custom NPCs I add to fallout, it’s still going to feel soulless and pointless to me, and no matter how many tents or frostbite effects you add to skyrim, it won’t become as immersive as Outward.
Mods can improve what is already there but in my experience, they can never replace or rework core foundations of games, either because the modders don’t have enough time and experience to do it (resulting in janky or unbalanced messes), or because the engine/API doesn’t support it.
Fair points but I do have issue with the combat stuff; I can’t remember the name of it, but the last time I was playing I had found a mod that made combat exactly like Dark Souls. It was a serious game changer.
If you could remember the name I’d like to give it a try but I am veeerryyy skeptical its any good since the environment, gear progression, player abilities and enemy movesets haven’t been designed to fit the dark souls style combat. Just having some form of stagger would be a nice improvement though.
It’s called AMCO, and it’s fairly modular in that you can use the base movement animations with any of the several dozen attack animations on Nexus.
There’s also a mod which applies all this to NPCs as well. (If I recall, it’s called SCAR, but I’m not certain because it’s been quite a while.)
Main site (with a whole bunch of related mods): https://www.skyrim-guild.com/mods/category/Combat
There are also related videos on each mod’s page showing what they do.
Enjoy!
That’s not for me. Not gonna pay AAA prices for a game I have to spend hours of my own time fixing their mistakes. He’ll I’d have to learn a whole new skill.
Why are y’all so damn negative? Every thread I’ve seen on here about Starfield has been like this. It’s not even out yet, god damn
Experience. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me, uh, you can’t get fooled again!
In addition to what others have said I also suspect that being a console exclusive has made some people be very critical of it. I’m not a big bethesda fan but what I have seen so far looks great and I’m looking forward to play it.
Have you seen the state of AAA gaming right now? And Bethesda’s past record? I would be surprised if it didn’t turn out to be shit.
Am I taking crazy pills? Except for 76, an MMO, Bethesdas record has been pretty good for single-player games, no?
I’ve played all of their games since Morrowind on Launch and always had a blast.
Then you should know the content quality of their games have gone steadily down since Morrowind, as they have prioritized trend-chasing over, pretty much, everything else.
It culminated in 76’s concept and I highly doubt they are done with it.
Their games have gotten wide as the ocean and shallow as a puddle. The mechanics and quest design are so simplified and shallow. Skyrim and Fallout 4 are more like action games with some light RPG elements. As noted by the comment below, they’re chasing trends. Newer games can’t compare to options you have in New Vegas or even Morrowind.
The studio has changed. Just because Fallout 4 wasn’t a “true RPG” doesn’t mean I didn’t have nigh on 400 hours of novel joy with it, maybe even because it wasn’t just another core Bethesda RPG but because it was something new, a new kind of looting and crafting experience in that same large, dynamic open world that Bethesda could bring through. Morrowind was over 20 years ago. Bethesda isn’t the one making those kinds of games anymore.
Have the games gotten shallower as RPGs? Sure. Fucking pac man is shallow at this point, does that mean everyone should hate on it en masse? If you don’t like the direction Bethesda is going that’s completely understandable, but it just seems absurd that people come out of the woodwork in these threads to just poop on a game that isn’t even out yet. Save that for when it releases and it does or doesn’t meet your expectations, as of now it just sounds like everybody is trying to get as entrenched as possible in their prejudice.
Bethesda games are buggy, what an old meme. It’s more of a meme than a true criticism now because most games have bugs, especially ones as large as Bethesda games, and even on launch I’ve played other Bethesda games and enjoyed myself just fine. It’s good to be cautiously skeptical and not pre order, you should be skeptical, but swinging all the way past that to being hard-line negative is not the right answer either.
And I know you personally are not reflecting all of these views, your comment just comes off as supportive of both genuine and over the top memetic criticisms due to replying in a seemingly justifying manner to someone confused about the buggy game comments. When it comes to those sorts of comments I’m talking generally about what I’ve seen from people on this platform.
I’m not saying Starfield will be an old Bethesda return to form or bug free on release, I’m just saying be cautious, not completely pedal to the metal negative, and accept that Bethesda as it was is dead.
At the risk of sounding like a cynical bastard, I’m gonna address some of your points.
Just let me start off with: If you enjoy the games, great. More power to you.
The lack of depth isn’t just reserved to the RPG mechanics. The story, the dialog, the characters… everything is lacking in depth. All the “Environmental Story Telling” in the world can’t make up for the neglected writing.
And everything that has been added isn’t new by any stretch of the imagination. It’s all borrowed from other current franchises, then half-assed and shoveled in by Bethesda. The loot system being one of the few things that actually works as intended.
Pac-Man is old as balls and I haven’t seen anyone trying to pass it off as something new. Hell, even The Legend of Zelda series still follow the exact same premise of the very first game on the NES. The sequels get bigger, smoother and more beautiful. But it’s still the same game at it’s core, because it actually works.
Next point: All games launch buggy. Yep, and it has become a bit of a meme with Bethesda for a reason. Their newest games still have the same game-breaking bugs in them as Morrowind did. Some have even gotten worse. The modding community are literally fixing the same stuff, every title. Which is amazing, as Beth keeps updating their crappy Engine, but at no point in 21 years did they take the time to iron this shit out.
I do agree that we shouldn’t be shitting on a game before it comes out. But it’s not like people have zero idea what they are in for. From what has been shown, Starfield just looks like Fallout 4 with a fresh coat of paint. And there is a bit of a track-record to back most of the assumptions up.
As i said: If you like the road they have been taking with their games and you enjoy them. Keep enjoying them.
I think there’s just a general sense of disappointment from a lot of old players. And it builds up fast in the echo-chambers of the internet and can come off as aggressive even when it wasn’t the intention. And it works both ways. Dear lord, have I met some angry people defending games, simply because they can’t fathom the idea that they might just like playing a ‘bad game.’
It’s the circle of public gaming forums.
I understand your position as well, I think we just need to have more moderate discussions and less going to extremes.
I didn’t address the writing and dialogue of the games because those are absolutely getting the short end of the stick in terms of what Bethesda is spending their resources on, but I found the systems that they put work into in Fallout 4 worthy enough of that time spent instead, and I think that says more about my preferences of what I like in a game than it really does about if Bethesda games are “better” or not this way.
I tend to prefer moment to moment gameplay and I found Fallout 4’s complex interlocking loop of wanting to build a settlement and modify my equipment, leading to tracking down certain materials and identifying where they may be logically found, to going there on foot, to looting the place systematically and engaging the enemies with the weapons and armor I modified and have personal attachment to, to managing my inventory with an investment and thought that never mattered as much in previous Bethesda titles, etc.
That whole loop and set of mechanics that play into each other added an incredible wealth of what I consider more moment to moment gameplay depth than just enjoying the wider possibilities of dialogue options in past Bethesda titles.
Even at its best good old days Bethesda writing doesn’t really compare to other games much more focused on writing (not going to mention New Vegas here because Obsidian is one of those devs better at writing than Bethesda). Bethesda games are always more than the sum of their parts.
My point about Pac Man is more that you don’t dislike the game’s lack of depth in certain areas just for its own sake, but because you’re comparing it to the studio’s past. When Pac Man Championship Edition and DX released, those
had favorable receptions because they took the arcadey roots of the franchise to their logical conclusion instead of swapping to more accessible gameplay trends as Bethesda did.
Not an invalid criticism, but not the only thing people should be mentioning in some of these comments as if that’s what makes the game “bad”.
And if you really think Starfield is going to be Fallout 4 with just a new coat of paint… That’s just disingenuous. There’s already more than enough changes in new mechanics and systems that didn’t exist in FO4 aside from the entire new universe and premise that’s more than simply a coat of paint.
I do hear what you’re saying though and I appreciate acknowledging some of the parts people skip over thinking about just to hit the low hanging fruit that have been brought up in every thread about a Bethesda game since time immemorial, adding nothing new to the discussion.
That is all fair points.
In my personal opinion, I think what irks me the most is that all of Bethesdas missteps are fairly easily fixable. They just seem to refuse to do so for some reason.
A bit more focus on the overall writing would go a long way and wouldn’t have to interfere with the gameplay in the least for people who don’t care. It’s an intricate part of world-building for those that do enjoy it and serves to drive the player forward. Also helps the ‘suspension of disbelief’ and all that.
They don’t need to reach the heights of the old CRPG makers of the 90’s. Just make sure your “Antagonist” has a proper response when you put in an option to ask him Why he’s doing what he’s doing, you know? Stuff like that. As well as maybe not retconning the timeline of the universe just to fit an inconsequential quest-line and then recon it again in the next game… Stick to the established lore.
Secondly: Better implementation of a few new/borrowed features, like base building, that might fit the game. Instead of haphazardly throwing everything currently trending at the wall in the hope that some of it sticks. Take one thing and do it proper, otherwise just don’t do it at all.
Then there’s the Radiant-Quests in F4. This is just a poor excuse so as to not bother with making actual side-quests. There is a limit to how far they can execute their motto of “Keep it simple, stupid.” This is one of those limits.
There’s probably a couple of other things I’m forgetting. But I feel these little changes would help elevate Beth’ just a bit out of the meme-pit they’re currently in.
Their games have always been as wide as an ocean and shallow as a puddle. That’s what we like about them. Get out of my giant splashy pool!
Bethesda makes well liked games, yes. But they have a track record of their games coming out as complete buggy messes that need 6-12 months to be in a decent state.
Could be in this case that Microsoft has realized how important this game is to their console efforts and the delays have been an effort to avoid a repeat of Bethesda’s typical. I wouldn’t be too surprised. I’d recommend being wary until the game is out. Waiting won’t hurt anyone.
No, they’re trying to fix a broken mess. I have this feeling. Dunno about you.
I wouldn’t be surprised by that at all either. Which is why I recommended waiting!
Always! Also, the cake is a lie ʘ‿ʘ
We’re on the same pills, haters gonna hate
I’m not hyped for the game but I’m still curious to play it down the road once the inevitable and glaring bugs from the launch are patched.
Given how modern AAA games are and Bethesda’s recent track history, it’s not negative to be skeptical, it’s smart.
Especially since despite Microsoft watching over them and helping them to have the most “bug free launch in history” it’s still probably going to be a hot mess for weeks to a month after launch. I want to be pleasantly surprised, but I’m not getting my hopes up.
Plus, the recent release of Baldur’s Gate 3 with no microtransactions or season passes, etc. has gotten peoples’ standards up, and given that Microsoft paid a lot of money to buy Bethesda, we’re aware that they’re going to have to make that money back somehow, and will probably give into the temptation to do some really player unfriendly things to do it.
Bethesda’s been going all in on surprisingly expensive microtransactions for really tiny amounts of content, like in Fallout 4 and 76, and it wouldn’t be shocking for them to continue in that direction. People aren’t being mindlessly negative, they’re looking at current and past trends and making an educated guess about the future.
This isn’t even new. Bethesda literally set the standard for overpriced MTX with the god damn horse armor in Oblivion for $7.50. That was the first time in history the microtransaction was used and it garnered much the same response as they do now.
It hasn’t come out yet so there is nothing positive to say
Very good point. Everything that we get now is marketing.
So how does that lead to so then there’s only negative things to say? It is, once again, not out yet. I’m starting to dislike being in any community around games, because everyone appears to just hate games. It’s exhausting.
Because we have memories long enough to remember literally every game Bethesda has released this millennium
And yet you keep buying them?
Goddamn, stop doing that and get out of our fandom!
#Gatekeeping
I own every game they’ve ever released, but the expectation they’ve built over the last 20 years is that their games spend a year being trash, at least
Because fandom is basically a bunch of entitled brats with nothing better to do.
Because - and this is the only real answer you’ll get - Starfield is “cool” and “normies” are looking forward to it. Therefore, the “real gamers” must hate it, ESPECIALLY before actually playing it.
Same shit you see in any niche community. Buncha nerds hating on anything too big or popular.
I’m sure that drives a good chunk of it, but it’s more likely that there are a lot of people that have had their fill of Bethesda games that all basically play the same, just in different settings, and those people tend to be in nerdier spots like this. Feels a little dorky to just blame it all on fun-hating nerds haha, what a coincidence that all the people that disagree with you are just mad losers!
Edit: Going back to this comment after Starfield came out and yeah, it’s about what I expected. Skyrim in space lol. Can totally understand why people are underwhelmed or annoyed.
Honestly mate? Not at all. I’m concerned about Starfield because of Bethesda’s track record since Fallout 4, and in particular, their constant attempts to introduce paid ‘mods’ to their games through the creation club (which are always overpriced for tiny amounts of content) as well as how broken their games have been at launch since Morrowind. When my PC, which can run Baldur’s Gate 3 on max settings, can’t run Oblivion without mods without regular crashes, then there’s a big problem.
I want Starfield to be good. But Bethesda do not make good games. They make broad games, but there’s no depth, and what is there is fairly consistently buggy. They have the Pokemon problem though, where people are willing to give them a pass because of the big name. I guarantee you, if a smaller developer released games in the state that Bethesda does, their games would be (rightfully) panned.
Or just look at Bethesda’s track record the last two decades…
In the past two decades they delivered some of the most successful, beloved games of all time.
Successful and good are completely different and unrelated metrics. Fifty Shades of Grey was extremely successful, but no one in their right mind would ever call it good. Psychonauts was met with universal acclaim, and is widely considered to be one of the best games of all time, and yet it was a complete flop and needed more than a decade to get a sequel.
Bethesda games are extremely successful. They are not good games, and their success is not a good thing. Bethesda kicked off microtransactions in 2007 with Horse Armour. This decision completely fucked the wider industry. Not a fan.
So…that’s your personal taste. Fifty Shades of Grey wouldn’t have been successful if no one liked it, and we can quantify some form of quality via review scores. Some of Bethesda’s games have reviewed phenomenally well, especially in as large of a bucket as the past 20 years of their history. If I was the sole dictator of what was good, no one would be playing the latest Assassin’s Creed game or Hades, but plenty of people love those games; the majority would say they’re great, and we can measure that to some degree.
I don’t think this comment deserves the effort it would take me to properly respond to that.
No, you can measure it in things like sales and review scores. Sure, they also put out games like Fallout 76 and Wolfenstein: Young Blood, but two decades is enough to capture Skyrim and Fallout 3.
So a decent but by no means amazing game and a complete turd? Not really helping your case here very much, IMO. The last truly great game Bethesda made was Morrowind, and I will die on this hill.
I really didn’t like Skyrim, Fallout 3, Oblivion, Fallout 4, or 76. Still playing Morrowind and New Vegas though. I could go on about why for a looooooooong time but really don’t care to. Suffice to say there are plenty of people (obviously) that are not happy with those games. I bought them all too so that would show up in sales data. Shame on me, I guess. I’ve been burned enough times that I’m not even going to bother being excited about this one.
But there are also tons of people who’ve been plenty pleased with those games, as you can see on the long tails of their sales and how many concurrent players they retain to this day. You’re the odd one out on those heavy hitters. Not so much on 76, and to a lesser extent, 4.
Remember: “It just works.”
Never pre-order, never have hope.
Hope is the mind killer
Never give up, never surrender.
Luckily it’s on Gamepass that I subscribe to anyways. So no regrets of it’s bad other than the wasted bandwidth to download.
I can’t bring myself to care after Fallout 4 being mid, and BG3 being amazing.
I really enjoyed FO4. It didn’t live up to Fo3 or NV for me, but I still had a blast playing through multiple times.
It’s a different game. I go back and enjoy FNV still and FO4 as well because it scratches a different itch. The looting, crafting, settlement construction, etc. are executed much much better than FNV or 3, or otherwise are entirely new mechanics. It’s a whole different thing, it’s the studio pedigree and franchise the games belong to that allow these criticisms to continue on even when you’re comparing games that are radically different beneath the surface.
You know, BG3 is a great experience overall, but I don’t think it’s a great gaming experience. I’ve experienced at least a handful of softlocks that forced me to rewind a decent amount of playtime… and I don’t really think I’m playing in a way that should break the game.
I save scum because you are 100% correct.
these arent new or noteworthy features for a bethesda title? Even morrowind had housing and jail
I guess you are right. But a Bethesda fan might be looking for these features. So it’s not meant to sell novelty, but familiarity instead.
The novelty is in the space setting already.
When I buy a Bethesda game, I know what I’m getting into. People bitch, but like you said, it’s the familiarity I’m going for.
And you know the modding scene is going to be good in a year or so.
Totally.
Ultimately I don’t understand all the bickering. I don’t like Subway or McDonald’s, but I also don’t rant that they are no good because they don’t have lasagna on the menu.
‘I love to buy Skyrim a twentieth time with a space reskin!’
This but like, unironically
Exactly. I’ve been playing Bethesda games for ages, news like this makes me happy they’re keeping the stuff that works.
Fallout series doesn’t have jail though, every conflict is solve with fight to the death, so this indicate it’s more like ES than FO.
Hyping up old features as if they’re groundbreaking is a proud Bethesda tradition. I still remember laughing at their pre-release hype around the Radiant quest randomizer in Skyrim, which is virtually identical to the quest randomizer that Daggerfall had been built around fifteen years prior.
Also Radiant Quests were already part of Oblivion as well, which they had to dumb down for whatever reason.
“Whatever reason” being that without the dumbing down, the NPCs were so murderous that, however hilarious it was, it rendered the game unplayable.
I only remember that it could render it rather difficult. but not that difficult. thanks for clarifying :)
Murderous at each other, not the player.
In the wise words of Todd Howard: It just works
It’s a Q&A. People asked about shit they know about from other games.
it just works
Not only hyping a features they had for several games now, but I bet my left ovarie thats they all gonna be as broken as their earliest iteration
Yup, that.
Don’t get me wrong, I love me some Bethesda games, but only 5 years after they’ve come out and with a 200 plugin modlist.
i like modding as much as the next gal but this type of relationship bethesda has with their fans is not good, at all, and i never see anyone ever mention it
People talk about it all the time. Longtime fans just don’t care. I’ve been playing these since Daggerfall. Bethesda Softworks makes a very particular kind of game this is very appealing to some of us, and nobody else makes them like that, not that I’m aware of. You think Skyrim was buggy on release? It’s got nothing on Daggerfall, but I loved it anyway.
Mods make the game better, give them a longevity they wouldn’t otherwise have. Skyrim with Frostfall and a needs mod is almost my dream game. But I was perfectly satisfied with the game on Day 1.
Im no stranger to daggerfall either but that just highlights the problem with the company but some fanatics who blindly follow then
Their games don’t have to be buggy messes till modders do bestesdas job for them, mods should primarily enhance, not fix.
And these people who don’t care (as you that is) are one key problem why bethesdas and other companys launch their games like an alpha they’ll never fix (hows their ducttape held severly outdated engine gonna cripple this title I wonder)
We have multiple generations of developers releasing like this. With a few rare exceptions (which are the only games from 15+ years ago most people remember), all games release buggy. Even on console, for every Super Mario Bros. that played the way it was supposed to, there were ten unplayably buggy examples of licensed shovelware. And half of “Nintendo Hard” was just that these games were janky as fuck.
Games are hard to make. Ridiculously huge and complex games are even harder to make. If you think you can do better, please do so.
dont you see the inherit problem that these devs all themselves created with the increasing cost, increasing scope, increasingly forcing bigger retention spans? these games dont need to be this needlessly huge and even than there is no need to have them almost broken (have you SEEN how cd project red always releases their games?)
i never said it was that much better back than, its just much easier to have all of this garbage available than it was back than cause now its flooding the online stores
and of course “do it better yourself than”, i dont have to be a mastercoder to recognise subpar quality, i dont need to be a masterchef to know when something tastes bad
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It’s not good that the games are broken and they are relying on modders to fix them. It would be totally fine if they released a fully functioning thematic sandbox for modders to play in though.
The thing about Bethesda games is that their modding tools are far and away from any other game, making serious improvements much more accessible. That’s one of the major draws of them.
I just wish every game didn’t have an unofficial patch requirement to keep it from crashing too often.
exactly, i would have no problem in that case
I want it to be good for all my friends who have an Xbox but a darker side of me is also relishing the YouTube content should it be a broken mess.
cant wait for the
backwards flying dragon, i mean the backwards flying spaceshipsI’ll be busy playing Baldur’s Gate 3 anyway. Will look back when they finish fixing it after release.
We’ll go play it once the community finishes it with mods :')
It just feels like other empty promises, can’t wait for the 25go day-1 patch guys
These are all things that have existed in all of their RPGs since Arena. These aren’t empty promises, but they’re also not something to be super hyped on.
I’m going to try to be more balanced in my opinion yeah :)
I guess the only thing is to wait and see what its like.
But the fact that its single player and seems to be geared toward customization/unique backstories (actual rpg stuff) sounds very promising.
After Redfall I am really not looking forward to games from this publisher
Bethesda Games Studio is entirely different from Bethesda the publisher, so I wouldn’t be too worried
After fallout 76, I’m worried. After canceling Prey 2, I’m worried.
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Yes but they had an incentive to stay with it. It’s actively profitable. Whereas with star field not so much
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I’m just concerned and will wait for reviews before buying (like everyone should). Bethesda has a reputation for being slow to fix games and having lots of bugs and crashes at release. And even then, they patch them up to being playable and leave the rest for modders to fix.
What makes you think they stick with their games? They fix bugs for about a year or so after release and move on, just like any other studio. They fix stuff in re-releases but you have to pay for that.
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Well, it will probably be broken.
Name one Bethesda Studios game that wasn’t broken at launch.
But fair points otherwise.
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Fair enough. F76 was a shit show. But I have high hopes both because Starfield is a single player game and because a multiplayer Fallout was always a terrible idea anyway
Can I put a bucket on their head
Space buckets!
Every new piece of info I see about this game just tells me exactly what I was expecting. Skyrim/Fallout but with a new coat of paint. The only thing actually new and has me excited beyond knowing they generally make fun games is the space combat shit. And frankly, I’m more inclined to think it’s going to be the jankiest, most broken part of the game considering it’s still on the creation engine and vehicles have never been very good on it. But I would love to be wrong.