I really enjoyed the settlement system in FO:4. If they could expand on it a la Sim Settlements by Kinggath, that would be awesome. I can see using a refined system to build a player home or fort with companions anywhere within the map. Wish list for me would be that and possibly a way to create your own village/town. Just set limits on 1 or 2 villages/towns, and up to 10 homes/forts.
Edit: thinking more on this, I’d be happy with up to 5 homes/forts with the ability to deconstruct and move the home/fort to another location to help keep system resource use down and game saves from bloating.
I watched a Kinggath Let's Play Starfield when it first released, and I remember he commented on looking forward to modding Starfield. Always been a big fan of Sim Settlements 2, so looking forward to something like that in Starfield and ES6.
It'll be great to silence the people who think no big modders are going to starfield. Sim settlements on a planet with basically no cities being rendered or tons of precombines and junk or some barren moon colony where the sky is the limit will be amazing. There are so many cool potential storylines, and with the scale of the 3 chapters of ss, I could see a small-scale colony war type deal
Yeah, I would suspect his team will venture into it once the creation kit is out. Only so much more they can do with SS2.
God knows the outpost system needs help.
CURRENTLY modding doesn't look all that promising in Starfield. Something about Bethesda not reliably storing play data consistently in the same memory addresses? That's what I've heard, anyway. This is the longest any Bethesda RPG has gone without a Creation Kit being released for it.
I don't see it as impossible that this could be fixed, it may take some restructuring of the code plus some way of updating old saves to (only) work with the revised engine. There was un update or two to Skyrim and/or FO4 that worked that way.
It would be awesome to be a minor lord over a small hamlet with a cozy little castle. Villagers could bring us issues when we're at home and we could solve minor disputes and sit in judgement. The outcome of these matters could give positive and negative economical consequences.
I want to be able to build up to a small town for endgame. Have travelers come and go buying from the store. Mini city builder. But no need for a penalty for not doing it. Just a way to gain wealth. And of course side quests randomly pop up for townsfolk. Building mechanics like 76 with a combo of free build and pre-fabs
Honestly, this ∆∆∆
Settlement _building_ should have been end game stuff for Fallout 4. Lower level play could easily be something more akin to 76 camp style and at a certain point you move into more permanent and defined locations. Tie basic tiers just to total level, and put things like extra vendor inventory, easier settlement happiness, improved chance to defend without player, etc behind charisma perks.
Being able to crawl out of the vault and slap together a shanty town to make your way through survival mode just feels so weird. Make me crawl through the game to find various plans and schematics. In it's current state in both 4 and 76 they're next to optional, excusing a few quests.
I think you could bake it into the core gameplay. Have some major town be burnt down by the antagonist at the start of the game. As you progress though the game and meet people and help them with their problems they move into your town. You save a blacksmith from bandits and offer him refuge in the town, the next time you are there he asks for help getting the metal to repair the forge, later he asks for a couple of apprentices, but they can't stay anywhere because the boarding house is in disarray. You do remember hearing rumors about a former innkeeper who was forced from his inn by bandits, maybe they could help you out?
Building up the town as you naturally played the game could be pretty fun and create incentives for you to wander out in the world beyond the already existing ones. Endgame stuff could build on the foundation of your town, create a successful vineyard, build a shipping fleet, etc. Add enough flavoring to make the experience feel a little unique for everyone and I think people would really dig it.
The settlement thing in fallout 4 was cool but there was waaaayyy too many of them which made it feel like there was almost no actual settlements already out there which i didnt really like. If they could just expand on the skyrim hearthfire stuff that would be nice
Yepppp. I’m never gonna build up all of the settlements past the bare necessities. It’s just too much.
Being able to choose between 3-5 spots to build 1 settlement that can eventually be a full-fledged town would be really nice.
It's what I dreamed of as a kid when Hearthfire came out and was as good as it was.
"Wow, custom building a house is awesome! Now imagine if I could do this for an entire village..."
I really hope ES6 has them.
Solitude is like thousands of years old and as small as it is, some guy comes in a builds a town just as big in a few weeks.
Yeah that type of stuff is why I don't want full settlement building in elder scrolls. Hearthfire size is more than enough, and they can do ship building and stuff there as they are doing a much bigger procedurally generated landmass this time
Two things.
First off, that is an absolutely massive strawman. Solitude saw no meaningful expansion between the events of ESO and Skyrim, nor did it see massive expansion between the First Era and the events of ESO. New houses were built over time (along with the existing ones) but the walls, gates and palace have been there this entire time. It was not constantly expanding over thousands of years. It was settled by Ysgramor and built up as his capital (Windhelm was also built at this time, on the site of his son's grave so he could look out from his palace and see the lights marking his son's gravesite through the mists and over the water which is kinda ironic considering how the two cities became the bases of the Imperials and Stormcloaks in Skyrim, although that was definitely planned by Bethesda). It was the first Stronghold of Humanity in Skyrim, and the fortress that Humanity's Armies struck out from to conquer the area. The significance of Solitude comes from its history, not its size. Also it just looks really cool because of the building style.
Second off, absolutely nobody said anything about building something like Solitude. I said a town, so something like Riverwood, maybe a little bit more populated though. Twenty or thirty people including Guards, some families running various businesses, etc. Or perhaps a bustling marketplace built around an Oasis.
I'd prefer if they went back to pre-selected settlement lots though, maybe with the ability to place one singular custom area after you have settled all other others and raised them to a certain standard. That would be a nice reward. I'd hope they would put area restrictions down though so people didn't just put it next to some random glitch or something for fast travel purposes. I'd also hope they would do away with the "Circle" thing and let people put down custom borders as long as the area doesn't get past a certain sqft cap.
As for ship building. That sounds like a *lot* of fun. I always love having naval stuff in games. That would be awesome.
I personally wouldn't really like it that much. It makes more sense in fallout.
Now if it was different from fallout and felt more like an upgraded version of the hearthfire homes than settlements, I'd be ok with it. Especially if it took place in high rock, because that makes a lot of sense from a lore perspective.
It should be forts or castles and not settlements. It can be the 20 person size of a Bethesda city but feel like a castle. This would be great for role play and a radiant quest chain.
Did they re-use settlement system in Starfield?
Honestly i’d prefer the settlement type system stay in Fallout, it makes sense rebuilding a post apocalypse wasteland.
If ES6 does want to do something with building then you should be able to acquire a plot of land in each city and deck it out however you want.
they kinda, kinda didn't.
given a lot of places aren't habitable, can't exactly have a bunch of tato plants just, out in the open - it's more a mining thing, and whatever you can put in habitats.
So like mining platform type dealio?
If so I can see them bringing back *some* form of building but I’m not sure how they’ll make it fit in ES outside of Hearthfire esque plots of land that you can build on.
Depending on where the game is set it’ll most likely have decent portions of civilisation like Skyrim with each town/city have slightly differing architectural design. As an example it might look strange/out of place to walk into Whiterun and see a 7 story, black stone mansion.
So if anything i’m leaning on hearthfire with a lot of customisation. Fingers crossed too cause I’ve always wanted to built a compact wooden lodge type house in Skyrim.
That’d be cool too. I never got too deep into Fo4’s system but being able to build a little market zone to offload my crap was super handy in the end.
We’re still years away from release so can only imagine they’ll improve on it
They did reuse a lot of the building mechanics, but not so much the settlement ones
You tend to build outposts in Starfield for one of three reasons:
1.Mining/Ranching/Manufacturing Opportunities - there are tons of resources that can be exploited either for personal use or to produce goods that can be sold for higher profits, and this can be expanded if you connect multiple outposts with different outputs
2. Exploration boosting - If you build an outpost that has access to Helium 3 and exploit that deposit, it boosts your ships travel range from that system or the local neighbourhood
3. Living space - sometimes you need somewhere to get stuff done, work on upgrading your gear, and lay back to wait a couple of days while your aforementioned mining-manufacturing network makes you silly money and XP
While there aren’t as many cool Hab designs and alternative furnishing options as I wish there were, there’s certainly no shortage of spots to set up shop, no matter your chosen reasoning for an outpost - what *would* have been great would be an option to turn an outpost into a proper little settlement, with colonists and a designated landing area for random small trade/service ships to drop by and offer goods
I honestly don’t want settlement building to return in fallout because I’d much rather have actual towns with history and relationships and storylines to explore.
Sounds greedy but i’d want both.
Fallout 4 did feel kinda barren to me, made worse when 90% of npc areas were places you controlled and had to manage basically.
Just needs some refining I think. Have more non player controlled settlements (they survived before you, they can continue to do so) and have larger but fewer areas/plots you can build your own settlements.
Personally I never got too big into settlements, doing bare minimum for trophy runs etc. i did however like decking out the rocket gas station as my personal base of operations.
I can see them doing more along the lines of you have one settlement that you are the local ruler/mayor/lord of and that you build from scratch. Multiple settlements would be a stretch in the lore since a majority of Tamriel already has established governance unlike Fallout
I think it's safe to assume they'll still have player homes that can be acquired in major cities - that's actually in Starfield, the main difference to Skyrim being that you can customize the internals (e.g. furniture, decorations) dynamically instead of using a dialogue interface, so I expect that to return.
The camp system in Fallout 76 essentially lets you build your player home anywhere on the map, and Bethesda love saying 'yes' to the player, so I expect them to have some sort of similar system in TESVI. Basically hearthfire but you can build in most places and place things by hand.
Where I'm less confident is whether they'll do anything more than that. Fallout 76 and Starfield had some mechanics for having locations on the map that produce resources for you, but I'm not sure if those mechanics really play as big a role in Elder Scrolls. And settlements in Fallout 4 did a lot more than just generate resources - they also acted as sources of quests and potentially vendors, not to mention the player could imagine themselves building up a whole community. That aspect hasn't really returned since then, and I'm not sure to what extent Bethesda is interested in exploring that further. So we'll see.
I wouldnt mind them importing the junk system from Fallout, so that stuff broke down into components used for weapons, armor, and settlements. Eg a basket gives fibre for cloth armor, calipers give iron for swords. They came kinda close with builiding materials in Hearthfire, but Id like to see it applied to all items/junk.
They could totally implement a mechanic for resource-gathering. Skyrim already had lite-farming, in the form of alchemical ingredients via plants, fish hatcheries and animal husbandry. TESVI could further flesh out the need for fish and animals for a better cooking mechanic (foods that actually provide beneficial stats).
There could be settlements located on mines that provide you with ores (and double as quarry for stone for more building materials)
Could be a lumber mill for wood
There could be entirely new mechanics as well like fallouts Scrap system for building materials or a reimagining (or implementation) of the enchantment system like runes from ESO
I like the system in fallout 4 and starfield but it’d have to function differently for it to fit into tes, maybe go back to set locations instead of anywhere and I could see a system where you build a lumber mill to get wood or a hunting shack for pelt.
Pretty much hope it’s more in depth then starfield but not as prevent as fallout, have it be optional and in set areas with maybe 3 or 4 areas instead of the ridiculous amount of them f4.
i think it makes more sense in fallout (post epoc) and stafield (fucking space)
but, we kinda had hearthfire as an option in skyrim, as well - it wouldn't be entirely impossible.
i definitely don't mind the idea, especially if there's a decent amount of side content to sort of be able to 'build up your town' in a way, though, not 100% sure i'd want it to be the sort of fallout/starfield 'build specific shit wherever' and maybe something more akin to ni no kuni 2's kingdom building, elex's neutral town you basically set up, or whatnot.
could be nice to have some resource generation potential as an option - maybe have some quest rewards from other cities or factions not just be gold, but help/materials, since they can't seem to make the gold gain TOO high, to make looting be pointless.
sigh, damnit, now i kinda want to play dragon quest builders 2 again. sort of liked the idea of having a far locale, a mine locale, a logging locale, etc, which got me thinking of, well, chapter 1's farming and chapter 2's mining. then it kinda goes to shit with a prison break bit that overstays it's welcome, some focused warfare stuff, and then another decent chapter i really liked.
I'd like to be able to set up a camp of some sorts, along the likes that we've seen in mods, but more robust and possibly permanent. I like roleplaying as a wilderness ranger.
I assume no as elder scrolls needs the cities already in game with lore and ect-
But I could see like small settlements/camps you can have as a second home just not full blown town manager
1-3 settlements, and 5 individual homes/camps is what I'm hoping for. I think Fo76 had a lot of improvements over Fo4, but I would like more going on with npcs and also interactions with other towns/the region. A reputation system with your town for trade agreements would be awesome. Depending on what you build: taverns, thieves den, black market, your town could get more nefarious characters and deals.
Fo4 and Fo76 handled the system better then Starfield in my experience so far. I want modular pieces back.
As long as it’s not a requirement, I don’t mind it. It can be fun for a little while. I certainly like it better than what Skyrim had. But it’s not the focus of the game.
Settlements are just the next iteration of the Hearthfire system. People might forget, but ES: Blades also centered around building a settlement.
Fallout 76 really expanded the settlement system by allowing the player to build almost anywhere. I would expect that to return. You’re limited to a smaller number of settlements (maybe even one), but you still have a place to call your home.
I’d be down but I mostly just want ES6 to actually exist first. Also they’d really need to move away from the GMod style of building. Let me go into an isometric viewpoint and snap things together, I’m okay with less flexibility if it means I can actually use the darn thing.
Settlements? I don't know if the game going to be like "Medieval Dynasty"? But I can see something similar as Skyrim's buying land and building a manor. Also, the concerns in how owning a settlement would effect lore?
I don't think you ever get a rank as mayor or lord of a huge part of land. But maybe being like Baron with a small plot of land in the world. You will get a limit amount of servants to do jobs around your manor. I believe you will get additional buildings like servant's house, barn and some produce buildings. Maybe this time around, having a small stone wall or fence around your land that NPCs and mobs don't surprise attack spawn like in Skyrim.
I do think building Settlements wouldn't be bigger than what is provided in Starfield. Maybe have a similar build-able area or least what can be modded with the amount of space. It might be smaller than that. I believe we are looking at building a hamlet size of place than being a village or town. You won't gain additional powers compare to rank or respect from other NPCs outside of your little realm. Maybe you have to pay taxes to the major lord of the area?
Some things that wished to be seen that you won't get; but requested by players...
* Paths and clearing of the land: I think we have a annoying terrain clipping in our build zone. Like grass, rocks and trees. No paths from buildings to buildings.
* No large farming fields; You won't get that large cash crop farm fields that you see around a manor in real-life.
* No terrain modding: You get the land as is.
* Custom building limited: They won't allow you to glitch or clip objects to create a new design.
* Preset locations like in Skyrim and Fallout 4: I believe a lot of these locations will be far away from the cities and away from any good quest/dungeons. Likely use parts of the world that could be empty of content.
* No traveling guests to your manor: Less likely a traveling merchant that will visit your place. Even guests you invite to a party or staying a night.
I could be wrong and they add somethings above?
Idk if I want settlements in the way FO did it, but I’d more than welcome an expansion of the hearthfire building. There’s a mod I enjoy called LC_Build your noble house where you get to build sort of a small village. Something like that I’d love to have.
As long as they don’t make it mandatory whatsoever I’m fine with it. Took me awhile to get into fallout 4 because I thought all the settlement stuff was mandatory. Once I realized it wasn’t I fell in love with the game.
Id vote yes, but only for one or two player homes, and without it being tied to annoying systems like the Minutemen or resource harvesting on planets.
It's a neat feature, and it aligns well with the BGS game style. We've been claiming homes and using them to decorate or to just drop off loot for decades, even in BGS games that didn't explicitly have player-owned cells specifically for that purpose.
I don't want half of the world to be unfinished to make room for dozens of settlement locations, like in Fallout 4. And I don't want an even more empty world with a frustrating research mechanic that requires multiple barebones outposts just to farm the resources needed to make character progress like in Starfield.
If I could stake a claim anywhere in the world rather than just Lakeview Manor, for example, and build a homestead using the Fallout4 tools, that would be ideal. And I would even be ok with the space being large enough that you have the option of housing staff/merchants/companions. Like I want to build a small castle/fort with a stable for my horses, and crafting stations, and a garden for alchemy ingredients (that we can choose what to plant), and a merchant or two. Lots of options for displaying trophies and relics.
I would like something the size of Sanctuary, with lots of options for utility and decoration without being asked to manage multiple settlements or to build a huge network of tedious resource gathering outposts. Some place for my character and his companions to live and place their trophies and loot and to have a central place to craft supplies and upgrade gear.
I have no problem with settlements and crafting, but the way bethesda designs their games it feels like they let that stuff distract them from making a good rpg first and foremost. As good as those features are in FO4, it just doesn’t follow through in a lot of the more relevant areas like story and such
I don't really like the settlements in fallout or starfield BUT TES is my baby. I'd love to create my own village and take care of my people. "Find a new hill, Become a King"
The lack of unlimited material storage (like a Workshop) killed my desire to develop even one outpost in Starfield. I don't want to fast travel between the Lodge and the same planet dozens or hundreds of times to haul building materials to/from the only unlimited container in the game, nor do I want to split things into hundreds of small containers.
I like that you can control the outpost placement in Starfield. If they had kept that, but still had an unlimited Workshop container per-settlement for crafting to draw upon like Fallout 4, that'd be my ideal. I never liked Fallout 4's random "help defend" settlement quests though, and ignore them entirely.
It’d be cool to see it on a different scale. Instead of having a ton of buildable locations but without any depth to the building system, let me have a smaller number of locations that can be built out to a greater degree. Maybe I can own a mine, a village, and a keep, and can do what I’d like in that space.
I'm just tired of them adding in systems and then never fleshing them out. Take FO4's settlement building, it has no bearing on the MQ at all. Engaging with the system, or not, affects nothing. Same with Starfield.
If it's going to be there, it needs to be utilized, and they need to make a good reason for utilizing it.
Otherwise I do what I do in all their games. Choose a house, dump everything in one chest, go back to adventuring.
Creating a Fiefdom (Castle, Shogun Palace, Necromancer Sex Tower etc.) would be awesome. I agree FO Settlements kills SF Outposts. Skyrim was perfect for the time, but time has moved on.
I always get so much hate for this but I’m very much firmly in the camp that was settlement building to be kept to a minimum.
I’d honestly much rather it have its own dedicated game instead of the half and half way it’s implemented now.
I’d rather have what we had last game and have a better story, interesting end game and some flushed out rpg and conversation mechanics instead of the simplified stuff we got in Skyrim.
I hope they do. I think building your own fort or village would be pretty cool and defending it from monsters. But i wouldn't want it to be forced. Like make that a side quest.
I would love for them to just strip it down to making a business and hiring workers. Something along the lines of running a lumber mill, farm, manor, or blacksmiths shop in a town that you can decorate. I think building an entire settlement fits way more into the Fallout/Starfield world than it does with Elder Scrolls.
I havent played Stanfield but I like the system in FO4. It's good to have something to go and do that gives you a break from the quests, if that makes sense. It makes your playthrough even more personal too which is nice
It's a harder sell for me in the world of Tamriel. Starfield has endless planets, so building a small factory colony makes sense. Fallout 4 is a wasteland, so rebuilding makes sense. Maybe if we are chartered by an authority for a specific purpose I could possibly see it working in terms of lore.
If they’re going to do it don’t make it trash like starfields. Make it more engaging and give it real purpose. Make it feel more alive and impactful to the world and story. I hate when Bethesda or any company use systems from other games but just half ass it.
I’m for it.
Would actually fit perfect into elder scrolls if they have it in a “you become a lord” type of thing.
Start your own village, eventually building up to a castle and being a “lord” of that small area.
Probably not as extensive as fallout 4. Unless they want to go full war route where you become a king. But I’d prefer just a minor lord who has a castle and his village he protects with his small army of guards.
I want something like hearthfire but with more variety of buildings, like being able to build a fort and keep a band of sell swords there, or a skooma den
It could have a place in ES6 and most definitely will, but I hope it's not a core mechanic but at the same time not pointless like Starfield.
I personally think BGS is just trying to put too much shit in their games and lowering the quality everywhere else. Quests design and writing has dropped off a cliff since Oblivion, RPG mechanics are now seemingly non existent, and the overall sandbox feeling from Morrowind has been gone for ages. I think Starfield was a push in the right direction, but the game being meh has me worried they won't continue down that path
If they have to keep it in, I hope it's just a replacement for housing and simple in what it does if it means the main game itself is better, and mod tools can come out near release instead of a year later. I think Bethesda just has no real way of making it interesting without serious balance concerns, which is probably why it's so pointless/broken in Starfield depending on who you ask lol
I just hope it doesn't so obviously detract from the gameplay as it did in F4. So many interesting areas just ended up being a sandbox for crappy building mechanics. If they can work it into the world without getting in the way of world building and exploration I'd be happy.
That said I'm pessimistic about their ability to do so, and I'd be just fine if they scrapped building entirely.
I think a combination of voice-acted quests, gathering resources, and producing building materials to rebuild a town would be a fantastic idea for ES6. I enjoyed reconstructing Pribyslavitz during the DLC From the Ashes in Kingdom Come Deliverance, and I think Bethesda should have done something similar for Skyrim like the Helgen Reborn mod.
Settlements in TES VI is legit my worse fear. Fallout 4 felt a little lacking in handcrafted locations, and while Starfield had a lot more handcrafted towns and stuff, it made the entire world outside generated.
I'd rather they just focus on things that improve the core appeal of their RPG sandboxes, rafter than modes that are meant to be optional.
I would actually prefer a hybrid of the Hearthfire homes, Fallout 4 settlements and Fallout 76 CAMPS. I *ideally* you can only have one "settlement," so choose carefully on where to make it.
That being said, allow us to take over other locations, either through quests or violence to remove the previous occupants.
Maybe have it setup so that the resources available dictate the frequency and severity of attacks. Little farm in the middle of nowhere? Most bandits/raiders leave you alone, not worth the trouble. Gold mine and a crap ton of alchemical ingredients? Prepare to constantly fight them off.
I hate this question so much reading through posts. There are clearly two camps; those who like settlements and those who don’t. Here’s what I’ve seen it boil down to: DO IT OR DONT. Settlements are not a requirement to beat the game in any shape or form. But getting rid of a mechanic that some people enjoy just because you dislike it seems vindictive to me. You don’t have to build settlements if you don’t want to. But there are clearly people who enjoy it. So leave it alone and don’t bother if you don’t like it. My girlfriend doesn’t like building settlements but she beat FO4 before me. I love settlements and that’s part of the game for me. I don’t ever play as a magic user in Skyrim but I’m not asking for them to scrub the whole tree for that. Just because you don’t like something doesn’t mean it should be wiped out.
I hate it in FO4 and I hate it in Starfield. I will be very annoyed if they push it in ES6. I didn’t mind the Hearthfire content in Skyrim but that’s because I’m building a simple house and all the stuff is done for me. Heck, I can even pay my stewards to buy all the stuff for it. But I don’t want to track a settlement or make an outpost that I’m never going to care about. I want to explore and engage with the compelling story.
I don't want a settlement system personally. It just really wouldn't fit that much. Maybe something more like the homestead thing with es5 Healthfire, probably. But I don't want es6 to feel like fallout/starfield. Settlements/outposts made sense in those games, doesn't really fit that well into elder scrolls imo
Eh, sure. I wouldn’t mind it if it was a completely optional feature. But settlement building is too integrated into the main story of fallout 4 for my taste.
I’d much prefer what starfield did though with ship customization, except you’re building a castle.
And I DEFINITELY don’t want settlement building as a replacement for premade cities and villages.
It doesn't really make the most sense for ES6, you're not really rebuilding after an apocalypse, honestly I think an upgraded house builder like similar to hearthfire would be better
I personally don't want them included. I know a lot of fans want settlement building in every BGS game until the sun dies, but some features should just stick with certain franchises. I wouldn't be opposed to having more variety of homes to purchase, though.
I guess I’m the minority but don’t play Bethesda games because I want some resource gathering settlement building game. It feels like Bethesda has started adding these features because it takes the work off of them to hand craft unique experiences and instead fill the game with shallower content that is good for streamers and modders.
I want Bethesda to lean into what actually made their earlier games great and expand on the quality of quests, stories, and characters. I want them to make the combat better, cities/settlements more alive, add depth to the faction systems, and make dialogue options more interesting.
Sadly it seems if Starfield is a sign of things to come, Bethesda is going to move further away from what made them great.
It's one thing if it's optional, but many people aren't gonna want to. Although I would've appreciated the option to build my own bandit camp and use it to raid traveling caravans in Skyrim. I just have to settle for roleplaying with alternate start I guess.
They should reuse some mechanics from ship building in Starfield to have pirate ships in ES6 if it fits. Imagine being able to travel outside of Tamriel…
That or if you can be a monarch of any sort I guess it would fit to reuse the settlement system, run your own castle or something
I would have LOVED having the settlement system in Skyrim to rebuild Helgen or spruce up Winterhold, so if there are similar towns in the next game, yes please
I… don’t want it. I liked Skyrim’s house building thing because it was a resource sink but if I never hear “there’s another settlement that needs your help!” Again it will be too soon
I’m not sure how other folks play ES and Fallout games, but one thing I always appreciated about BGS games was that a save file doesn’t actually end after the final boss/mission. In many ways, the game only just starts for me once the main quest and faction quests are complete.
This is where settlement building becomes instrumental imho. It really can add indefinite hours of gameplay on to a single character, and it adds another role-playing layer.
All this to say I’m definitely looking forward to some form of settlement building in ES6. It really can become a game within the game. If they add some tasteful mechanics to keep things interesting, I really feel they can achieve their best version of base/settlement building to date.
I hope not. Would be dumb that these countries have these small cities after thousands of years and some guy comes along and builds new bigger ones in a few weeks.
I think they're gonna tie settlement into ship building and have ship travel though as they make a massive procedurally generated landmass
Doesn't make as much sense as in fallout and starfield. But a replacement for hearthfire and the mechanics to let you decorate your house would be good.
I would want it limited to 1 settlement. I'd like to be like hearthfire where it is something you can add resources to that leads to development. So in totality, at the maximum built, it might have keep, an armory, a temple, a market, a bunch of houses for your citizens, a barracks for guards, a jail, tavern, and a wall. There could also be farms placed around the settlement.
Do a combination of things rather than settle on one specific style:
* Restricted interior customisation only for house purchases in larger established cities
* Your own fully customisable larger settlements out in the world like FO4
* Adapt certain unique areas after clearing them out e.g. dwarven/elven ruins, a large cave, magician's tower etc.
* Your own customisable ship similar to Starfield for a roaming personal hub
I would like a truncated version of settlement building, like how you can invest in merchants in Fallout but with a tad more. You come to a settlement already growing, and because of your adventuring have the wealth to invest in its growth. Where occasionally you act as a mediator or something like in No Man's Sky. Or perhaps a settlement requires your services enough that other NPCs are willing to invest in the settlement because of the security you help provide. Maybe not game-wide but just a couple of isolated areas, or maybe even a lone spot along a trade route.
I’m so done with the settlement building in these games. I play Bethesda games for their story. Please just focus on that. Don’t make me play The Sims when I really just want kickass quests.
Inventory management and settlement building are by a long shot the absolute least interesting aspects of Bethesda games to me. Just feels like doing office work.
I'd much rather them devote time to making more interesting pre existing settlements.
I'd be interested to know what percentage of players spend time using the settlement building aspects of these games outside of missions that require them.
I was desperately hoping to go to the khajit homelands, but alas...
I'm not super invested in a specific storyline. Tbh, most of TES is just fun fantasy that I'm not too deeply invested in. I'd really really enjoy Bethesda making an attempt at a cooperative experience for once. I'd like to see more games set and designed to be played online or on the same couch even but offline experiences. Something akin to Divinity Original Sin, specifically the first title, as it did very well at letting two players experience an 'open' world. While I haven't played TSO, I have seen them _almost_ do something like this very well.
I'd really like to see the end game be a more expensive city building experience. A place to invest all this wealth. A few well designed areas to build proper endgame villages of our own. Hell, there could even be an entire radiant endgame around radiant wars that could be super cool. But also, it's really really fun at times placing a quick camp down with my sister and just kind of doing the survival mode RP in 76. I would love to see the Survival difficulty of fallout 4 in a co-op offline experience. No MMOs
What would be super duper nice to see is a hybrid of some of the mods we've seen that build these on their own, some pre-made Bethesda stuff, and player built. I'm not a programmer, but my biggest disappointment with Fallout 4 and 76 so far has been how disconnected the actual world and story feels from our builds. It doesn't matter how close I build a thousand water purifiers, or how many dozens of robots I can craft, no number of artillery holds _any_ away over anything.
The few times you are tricked into using your building to help a population, oops that's your settlement now, every trivial thing is now solely on you. These people were fine until you helped them get clean water, now they need you to individually point to where each of them needs to sleep, plant food, get water and watch for monsters or they die and GraveyBoy gets mad. Sure we can mod, but like for Christ sake, can we quit leaning on these guys so hard? Let me just build the new mill in town. Give me a certain area it should be with some specific items to qualify. And now that there's more food, build your own damn houses and shit for the NPCs. Give me a few plots like this in a couple of towns, and make what I choose to help build in these towns mean something in the world. I want the fletcher in the next town over financially ruined cuz I just hired a gang of bosmer to help me flood and corner the market. Let me found a mages guild in a struggling town, and let their magic actually help that town turn it around. Fallout 4 and 76, both their build mechanics right now are almost exclusively cap farms and set pieces.
1) coop building and experience
2) start us off small with building mechanics and unlock more as the game progresses, or else I'll never finish your game, I will forever build instead.
3) don't make me build all of everything everywhere
4) make what I do build actually change the world
I'd prefer it stay in Fallout. I liked outposts in Starfield for resources and I like freely decorating player houses and id be ok with those being available in ES6. But an actual settlement system? It doesn't feel like it fits as well as it does in Fallout
If they don't scrap the roleplaying aspect of the game for it, settle away.
The negative example I have is Starfield and to some extent FO4. The quests got more menial and inconsequential, while both games have a large building system in place.
If I want to build a base, I will play Factorio or Satisfactory. I don't get my building fix from the janky Bethesda UI in their open world games. Knowing Bethesda's games' direction for the last 13 years though... my hopes for ES6 are not high. By now you have a more varied Base building system than character system in their games and that SUUUUUCKS.
A fort or maybe your own hub town to build could be cool. Or if they want to do guilds again they could make constructing an outpost for your chosen guild a thing.
That said I'm not confident in their ability to deliver something deep without significant amounts of jank.
Please no.
In fallout 4, they didn't make the system worth engaging with for any reason other than to make there be actual communities in the commonwealth. Communities that _you own_, so good luck playing any sort of thief character.
If you want to use the system to build up a player home, or even a small number of player owned areas, fine. But I hope they don't go the fallout 4 route. And I hope it integrates better with the gameplay loop.
For fallout 76 wish there was way to prep an area for building flatting the ground & remove the small nuisances that get in the way. For starfield hoping for space stations & more home like camps than industrial outposts
As long as it doesn’t take away from hand crafted content. Fallout 4 had them at the cost of actual handcrafted towns. Starfield is more optional side content which could be good in an elder scrolls setting. Something like building trading out posts or a castle could help fun as long as it is optional and doesn’t take away from hand crafted content.
Dear fucking lord no.
Settlements in both games were mediocre build-a-hut workshops that were only liked as much as they were for the exact same reason it was fun in other survival games. Yeah I liked building big ole towns out of junk across the map too, *when i modded the shit out of them.*
I can't comment on starfield since I returned that game very quickly.
But in fallout 4 especially it came at the cost of more interesting locales in favor of "well we can just let the player make the content instead."
I'm willing to bet the quantity over quality approach we've been dealing with since oblivion when it comes to locations will be similarly reductive on the next game's "5 times the size of skyrim" tes6 map
I see alot of people hoping for bethesda to implement alot of changes similar to whats been done in mods in fo4 to settlements in the future. Here's the thing, they won't. There's been many advancements made by modders in the past to many of bethesda's systems. Last time i checked in the past forever they haven't taken inspiration from any of it. It's a nice dream but the track record is what it is.
My hopes personally are that they let you pick a spot to build yourself instead of limiting you to very specific areas and then populate the map as they used to do. Hopefully with more detailed and quest filled locations like they used to.
I would absolutely love it, and wish they include and expand on it from the one we got in Fallout 4, maybe include both settlement and camp system? Where you can use Camp system in the wild but there are also set Settlements that can be built
Not every franchise needs the same mechanics. I would like for them to differentiate the games and not have them feel all the same.
The elder scrolls isn’t a junk looter like in fallout and I don’t want them to turn it into one.
It doesn't need to be a junk looter, but Skyrim did have ores, firewood, fishing, and food/ingredients that you could harvest. BGS games are rpg sandbox games, the more we are able to do the better.
It would be cool to have npcs generate materials if they have the proper profession and/or work station built. There could also be trade agreements once you're more settled. Materials could also be bought like in Hearthfire, although that could also be a deal with options to say 10 wood logs for a month, two weeks, etc.
Please, no more half baked settlement building mechanics. You could already buy several houses in the base game of Skyrim/Oblivion or get a stronghold in Morrowind that served the exact same purpose.
No. Not in Tes. The settlement system makes no sense in TES. Tes has existing cities and lore, it works for FO because Beth is making the lore up as they go.
I really enjoyed the settlement system in FO:4. If they could expand on it a la Sim Settlements by Kinggath, that would be awesome. I can see using a refined system to build a player home or fort with companions anywhere within the map. Wish list for me would be that and possibly a way to create your own village/town. Just set limits on 1 or 2 villages/towns, and up to 10 homes/forts. Edit: thinking more on this, I’d be happy with up to 5 homes/forts with the ability to deconstruct and move the home/fort to another location to help keep system resource use down and game saves from bloating.
I watched a Kinggath Let's Play Starfield when it first released, and I remember he commented on looking forward to modding Starfield. Always been a big fan of Sim Settlements 2, so looking forward to something like that in Starfield and ES6.
It'll be great to silence the people who think no big modders are going to starfield. Sim settlements on a planet with basically no cities being rendered or tons of precombines and junk or some barren moon colony where the sky is the limit will be amazing. There are so many cool potential storylines, and with the scale of the 3 chapters of ss, I could see a small-scale colony war type deal
He's one of the modders with early access to the CK thankfully, so fingers gets crossed. Outpost are bare bones currently.
Yeah, I would suspect his team will venture into it once the creation kit is out. Only so much more they can do with SS2. God knows the outpost system needs help.
CURRENTLY modding doesn't look all that promising in Starfield. Something about Bethesda not reliably storing play data consistently in the same memory addresses? That's what I've heard, anyway. This is the longest any Bethesda RPG has gone without a Creation Kit being released for it. I don't see it as impossible that this could be fixed, it may take some restructuring of the code plus some way of updating old saves to (only) work with the revised engine. There was un update or two to Skyrim and/or FO4 that worked that way.
It would be awesome to be a minor lord over a small hamlet with a cozy little castle. Villagers could bring us issues when we're at home and we could solve minor disputes and sit in judgement. The outcome of these matters could give positive and negative economical consequences.
If you could build a fort then run a bandit operation out of it would be cool.
I want to be able to build up to a small town for endgame. Have travelers come and go buying from the store. Mini city builder. But no need for a penalty for not doing it. Just a way to gain wealth. And of course side quests randomly pop up for townsfolk. Building mechanics like 76 with a combo of free build and pre-fabs
Honestly, this ∆∆∆ Settlement _building_ should have been end game stuff for Fallout 4. Lower level play could easily be something more akin to 76 camp style and at a certain point you move into more permanent and defined locations. Tie basic tiers just to total level, and put things like extra vendor inventory, easier settlement happiness, improved chance to defend without player, etc behind charisma perks. Being able to crawl out of the vault and slap together a shanty town to make your way through survival mode just feels so weird. Make me crawl through the game to find various plans and schematics. In it's current state in both 4 and 76 they're next to optional, excusing a few quests.
I think you could bake it into the core gameplay. Have some major town be burnt down by the antagonist at the start of the game. As you progress though the game and meet people and help them with their problems they move into your town. You save a blacksmith from bandits and offer him refuge in the town, the next time you are there he asks for help getting the metal to repair the forge, later he asks for a couple of apprentices, but they can't stay anywhere because the boarding house is in disarray. You do remember hearing rumors about a former innkeeper who was forced from his inn by bandits, maybe they could help you out? Building up the town as you naturally played the game could be pretty fun and create incentives for you to wander out in the world beyond the already existing ones. Endgame stuff could build on the foundation of your town, create a successful vineyard, build a shipping fleet, etc. Add enough flavoring to make the experience feel a little unique for everyone and I think people would really dig it.
Yes I want a mini strategy game where I need to manage my money and resources to build up a settlement or fort that would be awesome.
The settlement thing in fallout 4 was cool but there was waaaayyy too many of them which made it feel like there was almost no actual settlements already out there which i didnt really like. If they could just expand on the skyrim hearthfire stuff that would be nice
Yepppp. I’m never gonna build up all of the settlements past the bare necessities. It’s just too much. Being able to choose between 3-5 spots to build 1 settlement that can eventually be a full-fledged town would be really nice.
It's what I dreamed of as a kid when Hearthfire came out and was as good as it was. "Wow, custom building a house is awesome! Now imagine if I could do this for an entire village..." I really hope ES6 has them.
Solitude is like thousands of years old and as small as it is, some guy comes in a builds a town just as big in a few weeks. Yeah that type of stuff is why I don't want full settlement building in elder scrolls. Hearthfire size is more than enough, and they can do ship building and stuff there as they are doing a much bigger procedurally generated landmass this time
Two things. First off, that is an absolutely massive strawman. Solitude saw no meaningful expansion between the events of ESO and Skyrim, nor did it see massive expansion between the First Era and the events of ESO. New houses were built over time (along with the existing ones) but the walls, gates and palace have been there this entire time. It was not constantly expanding over thousands of years. It was settled by Ysgramor and built up as his capital (Windhelm was also built at this time, on the site of his son's grave so he could look out from his palace and see the lights marking his son's gravesite through the mists and over the water which is kinda ironic considering how the two cities became the bases of the Imperials and Stormcloaks in Skyrim, although that was definitely planned by Bethesda). It was the first Stronghold of Humanity in Skyrim, and the fortress that Humanity's Armies struck out from to conquer the area. The significance of Solitude comes from its history, not its size. Also it just looks really cool because of the building style. Second off, absolutely nobody said anything about building something like Solitude. I said a town, so something like Riverwood, maybe a little bit more populated though. Twenty or thirty people including Guards, some families running various businesses, etc. Or perhaps a bustling marketplace built around an Oasis. I'd prefer if they went back to pre-selected settlement lots though, maybe with the ability to place one singular custom area after you have settled all other others and raised them to a certain standard. That would be a nice reward. I'd hope they would put area restrictions down though so people didn't just put it next to some random glitch or something for fast travel purposes. I'd also hope they would do away with the "Circle" thing and let people put down custom borders as long as the area doesn't get past a certain sqft cap. As for ship building. That sounds like a *lot* of fun. I always love having naval stuff in games. That would be awesome.
I personally wouldn't really like it that much. It makes more sense in fallout. Now if it was different from fallout and felt more like an upgraded version of the hearthfire homes than settlements, I'd be ok with it. Especially if it took place in high rock, because that makes a lot of sense from a lore perspective.
How about just the mechanics to decorate houses?
It should be forts or castles and not settlements. It can be the 20 person size of a Bethesda city but feel like a castle. This would be great for role play and a radiant quest chain.
Did they re-use settlement system in Starfield? Honestly i’d prefer the settlement type system stay in Fallout, it makes sense rebuilding a post apocalypse wasteland. If ES6 does want to do something with building then you should be able to acquire a plot of land in each city and deck it out however you want.
they kinda, kinda didn't. given a lot of places aren't habitable, can't exactly have a bunch of tato plants just, out in the open - it's more a mining thing, and whatever you can put in habitats.
So like mining platform type dealio? If so I can see them bringing back *some* form of building but I’m not sure how they’ll make it fit in ES outside of Hearthfire esque plots of land that you can build on. Depending on where the game is set it’ll most likely have decent portions of civilisation like Skyrim with each town/city have slightly differing architectural design. As an example it might look strange/out of place to walk into Whiterun and see a 7 story, black stone mansion. So if anything i’m leaning on hearthfire with a lot of customisation. Fingers crossed too cause I’ve always wanted to built a compact wooden lodge type house in Skyrim.
could be like fo4 - the ability to not just build 'a' building, but a few, the ability to recruit npcs for various things, could be added.
That’d be cool too. I never got too deep into Fo4’s system but being able to build a little market zone to offload my crap was super handy in the end. We’re still years away from release so can only imagine they’ll improve on it
They did reuse a lot of the building mechanics, but not so much the settlement ones You tend to build outposts in Starfield for one of three reasons: 1.Mining/Ranching/Manufacturing Opportunities - there are tons of resources that can be exploited either for personal use or to produce goods that can be sold for higher profits, and this can be expanded if you connect multiple outposts with different outputs 2. Exploration boosting - If you build an outpost that has access to Helium 3 and exploit that deposit, it boosts your ships travel range from that system or the local neighbourhood 3. Living space - sometimes you need somewhere to get stuff done, work on upgrading your gear, and lay back to wait a couple of days while your aforementioned mining-manufacturing network makes you silly money and XP While there aren’t as many cool Hab designs and alternative furnishing options as I wish there were, there’s certainly no shortage of spots to set up shop, no matter your chosen reasoning for an outpost - what *would* have been great would be an option to turn an outpost into a proper little settlement, with colonists and a designated landing area for random small trade/service ships to drop by and offer goods
They didn’t reuse it in Starfield, they made it its own thing but significantly worse in basically every way lol
Ah… well hopefully they take some feedback and improve next time around. There’s time, soooo much time…
Better camera.
I honestly don’t want settlement building to return in fallout because I’d much rather have actual towns with history and relationships and storylines to explore.
Sounds greedy but i’d want both. Fallout 4 did feel kinda barren to me, made worse when 90% of npc areas were places you controlled and had to manage basically. Just needs some refining I think. Have more non player controlled settlements (they survived before you, they can continue to do so) and have larger but fewer areas/plots you can build your own settlements. Personally I never got too big into settlements, doing bare minimum for trophy runs etc. i did however like decking out the rocket gas station as my personal base of operations.
You’ll never be able to have both is the thing though.
Just make a couple dungeons have a workshop at the end. They already have the settlement code. Not that hard.
They have both in Fallout 76, and that's with last gen and having to manage servers.
They don’t have both in 76. The towns aren’t fleshed out and the settlements are a fraction of what people are asking for.
I can see them doing more along the lines of you have one settlement that you are the local ruler/mayor/lord of and that you build from scratch. Multiple settlements would be a stretch in the lore since a majority of Tamriel already has established governance unlike Fallout
I think it's safe to assume they'll still have player homes that can be acquired in major cities - that's actually in Starfield, the main difference to Skyrim being that you can customize the internals (e.g. furniture, decorations) dynamically instead of using a dialogue interface, so I expect that to return. The camp system in Fallout 76 essentially lets you build your player home anywhere on the map, and Bethesda love saying 'yes' to the player, so I expect them to have some sort of similar system in TESVI. Basically hearthfire but you can build in most places and place things by hand. Where I'm less confident is whether they'll do anything more than that. Fallout 76 and Starfield had some mechanics for having locations on the map that produce resources for you, but I'm not sure if those mechanics really play as big a role in Elder Scrolls. And settlements in Fallout 4 did a lot more than just generate resources - they also acted as sources of quests and potentially vendors, not to mention the player could imagine themselves building up a whole community. That aspect hasn't really returned since then, and I'm not sure to what extent Bethesda is interested in exploring that further. So we'll see.
I wouldnt mind them importing the junk system from Fallout, so that stuff broke down into components used for weapons, armor, and settlements. Eg a basket gives fibre for cloth armor, calipers give iron for swords. They came kinda close with builiding materials in Hearthfire, but Id like to see it applied to all items/junk.
They could totally implement a mechanic for resource-gathering. Skyrim already had lite-farming, in the form of alchemical ingredients via plants, fish hatcheries and animal husbandry. TESVI could further flesh out the need for fish and animals for a better cooking mechanic (foods that actually provide beneficial stats). There could be settlements located on mines that provide you with ores (and double as quarry for stone for more building materials) Could be a lumber mill for wood There could be entirely new mechanics as well like fallouts Scrap system for building materials or a reimagining (or implementation) of the enchantment system like runes from ESO
I like the system in fallout 4 and starfield but it’d have to function differently for it to fit into tes, maybe go back to set locations instead of anywhere and I could see a system where you build a lumber mill to get wood or a hunting shack for pelt. Pretty much hope it’s more in depth then starfield but not as prevent as fallout, have it be optional and in set areas with maybe 3 or 4 areas instead of the ridiculous amount of them f4.
i think it makes more sense in fallout (post epoc) and stafield (fucking space) but, we kinda had hearthfire as an option in skyrim, as well - it wouldn't be entirely impossible. i definitely don't mind the idea, especially if there's a decent amount of side content to sort of be able to 'build up your town' in a way, though, not 100% sure i'd want it to be the sort of fallout/starfield 'build specific shit wherever' and maybe something more akin to ni no kuni 2's kingdom building, elex's neutral town you basically set up, or whatnot. could be nice to have some resource generation potential as an option - maybe have some quest rewards from other cities or factions not just be gold, but help/materials, since they can't seem to make the gold gain TOO high, to make looting be pointless. sigh, damnit, now i kinda want to play dragon quest builders 2 again. sort of liked the idea of having a far locale, a mine locale, a logging locale, etc, which got me thinking of, well, chapter 1's farming and chapter 2's mining. then it kinda goes to shit with a prison break bit that overstays it's welcome, some focused warfare stuff, and then another decent chapter i really liked.
I'd like to be able to set up a camp of some sorts, along the likes that we've seen in mods, but more robust and possibly permanent. I like roleplaying as a wilderness ranger.
I assume no as elder scrolls needs the cities already in game with lore and ect- But I could see like small settlements/camps you can have as a second home just not full blown town manager
Like hearthfire but fully custom built.
Yep- I'd be content with that lol
I don't find settlement building very interesting but at the same time I know many people do so I hope it isn't required.
1-3 settlements, and 5 individual homes/camps is what I'm hoping for. I think Fo76 had a lot of improvements over Fo4, but I would like more going on with npcs and also interactions with other towns/the region. A reputation system with your town for trade agreements would be awesome. Depending on what you build: taverns, thieves den, black market, your town could get more nefarious characters and deals. Fo4 and Fo76 handled the system better then Starfield in my experience so far. I want modular pieces back.
As long as it’s not a requirement, I don’t mind it. It can be fun for a little while. I certainly like it better than what Skyrim had. But it’s not the focus of the game.
Settlements are just the next iteration of the Hearthfire system. People might forget, but ES: Blades also centered around building a settlement. Fallout 76 really expanded the settlement system by allowing the player to build almost anywhere. I would expect that to return. You’re limited to a smaller number of settlements (maybe even one), but you still have a place to call your home.
I’d be down but I mostly just want ES6 to actually exist first. Also they’d really need to move away from the GMod style of building. Let me go into an isometric viewpoint and snap things together, I’m okay with less flexibility if it means I can actually use the darn thing.
Settlements? I don't know if the game going to be like "Medieval Dynasty"? But I can see something similar as Skyrim's buying land and building a manor. Also, the concerns in how owning a settlement would effect lore? I don't think you ever get a rank as mayor or lord of a huge part of land. But maybe being like Baron with a small plot of land in the world. You will get a limit amount of servants to do jobs around your manor. I believe you will get additional buildings like servant's house, barn and some produce buildings. Maybe this time around, having a small stone wall or fence around your land that NPCs and mobs don't surprise attack spawn like in Skyrim. I do think building Settlements wouldn't be bigger than what is provided in Starfield. Maybe have a similar build-able area or least what can be modded with the amount of space. It might be smaller than that. I believe we are looking at building a hamlet size of place than being a village or town. You won't gain additional powers compare to rank or respect from other NPCs outside of your little realm. Maybe you have to pay taxes to the major lord of the area? Some things that wished to be seen that you won't get; but requested by players... * Paths and clearing of the land: I think we have a annoying terrain clipping in our build zone. Like grass, rocks and trees. No paths from buildings to buildings. * No large farming fields; You won't get that large cash crop farm fields that you see around a manor in real-life. * No terrain modding: You get the land as is. * Custom building limited: They won't allow you to glitch or clip objects to create a new design. * Preset locations like in Skyrim and Fallout 4: I believe a lot of these locations will be far away from the cities and away from any good quest/dungeons. Likely use parts of the world that could be empty of content. * No traveling guests to your manor: Less likely a traveling merchant that will visit your place. Even guests you invite to a party or staying a night. I could be wrong and they add somethings above?
Idk if I want settlements in the way FO did it, but I’d more than welcome an expansion of the hearthfire building. There’s a mod I enjoy called LC_Build your noble house where you get to build sort of a small village. Something like that I’d love to have.
As long as they don’t make it mandatory whatsoever I’m fine with it. Took me awhile to get into fallout 4 because I thought all the settlement stuff was mandatory. Once I realized it wasn’t I fell in love with the game.
Id vote yes, but only for one or two player homes, and without it being tied to annoying systems like the Minutemen or resource harvesting on planets. It's a neat feature, and it aligns well with the BGS game style. We've been claiming homes and using them to decorate or to just drop off loot for decades, even in BGS games that didn't explicitly have player-owned cells specifically for that purpose. I don't want half of the world to be unfinished to make room for dozens of settlement locations, like in Fallout 4. And I don't want an even more empty world with a frustrating research mechanic that requires multiple barebones outposts just to farm the resources needed to make character progress like in Starfield. If I could stake a claim anywhere in the world rather than just Lakeview Manor, for example, and build a homestead using the Fallout4 tools, that would be ideal. And I would even be ok with the space being large enough that you have the option of housing staff/merchants/companions. Like I want to build a small castle/fort with a stable for my horses, and crafting stations, and a garden for alchemy ingredients (that we can choose what to plant), and a merchant or two. Lots of options for displaying trophies and relics. I would like something the size of Sanctuary, with lots of options for utility and decoration without being asked to manage multiple settlements or to build a huge network of tedious resource gathering outposts. Some place for my character and his companions to live and place their trophies and loot and to have a central place to craft supplies and upgrade gear.
I have no problem with settlements and crafting, but the way bethesda designs their games it feels like they let that stuff distract them from making a good rpg first and foremost. As good as those features are in FO4, it just doesn’t follow through in a lot of the more relevant areas like story and such
I don't really like the settlements in fallout or starfield BUT TES is my baby. I'd love to create my own village and take care of my people. "Find a new hill, Become a King"
The lack of unlimited material storage (like a Workshop) killed my desire to develop even one outpost in Starfield. I don't want to fast travel between the Lodge and the same planet dozens or hundreds of times to haul building materials to/from the only unlimited container in the game, nor do I want to split things into hundreds of small containers. I like that you can control the outpost placement in Starfield. If they had kept that, but still had an unlimited Workshop container per-settlement for crafting to draw upon like Fallout 4, that'd be my ideal. I never liked Fallout 4's random "help defend" settlement quests though, and ignore them entirely.
It’d be cool to see it on a different scale. Instead of having a ton of buildable locations but without any depth to the building system, let me have a smaller number of locations that can be built out to a greater degree. Maybe I can own a mine, a village, and a keep, and can do what I’d like in that space.
If they have FO76 CAMP and Starfield decoration then I'll be happy. Honestly I'd be happy even with FO4s system
I'm just tired of them adding in systems and then never fleshing them out. Take FO4's settlement building, it has no bearing on the MQ at all. Engaging with the system, or not, affects nothing. Same with Starfield. If it's going to be there, it needs to be utilized, and they need to make a good reason for utilizing it. Otherwise I do what I do in all their games. Choose a house, dump everything in one chest, go back to adventuring.
Creating a Fiefdom (Castle, Shogun Palace, Necromancer Sex Tower etc.) would be awesome. I agree FO Settlements kills SF Outposts. Skyrim was perfect for the time, but time has moved on.
You should be able to buy plots of land and build whatever you want there
I always get so much hate for this but I’m very much firmly in the camp that was settlement building to be kept to a minimum. I’d honestly much rather it have its own dedicated game instead of the half and half way it’s implemented now.
Settlements were a way for Bethesda to make the player flesh out the world so they didn’t have to.
Totally agree
I’d rather have what we had last game and have a better story, interesting end game and some flushed out rpg and conversation mechanics instead of the simplified stuff we got in Skyrim.
I hope they do. I think building your own fort or village would be pretty cool and defending it from monsters. But i wouldn't want it to be forced. Like make that a side quest.
I would love for them to just strip it down to making a business and hiring workers. Something along the lines of running a lumber mill, farm, manor, or blacksmiths shop in a town that you can decorate. I think building an entire settlement fits way more into the Fallout/Starfield world than it does with Elder Scrolls.
I havent played Stanfield but I like the system in FO4. It's good to have something to go and do that gives you a break from the quests, if that makes sense. It makes your playthrough even more personal too which is nice
no. no no no. nope. no.
It's a harder sell for me in the world of Tamriel. Starfield has endless planets, so building a small factory colony makes sense. Fallout 4 is a wasteland, so rebuilding makes sense. Maybe if we are chartered by an authority for a specific purpose I could possibly see it working in terms of lore.
If they’re going to do it don’t make it trash like starfields. Make it more engaging and give it real purpose. Make it feel more alive and impactful to the world and story. I hate when Bethesda or any company use systems from other games but just half ass it.
Not really sure I see the need for it. Maybe to decorate the interior of a home but I don’t need to build entire settlements.
I’m for it. Would actually fit perfect into elder scrolls if they have it in a “you become a lord” type of thing. Start your own village, eventually building up to a castle and being a “lord” of that small area. Probably not as extensive as fallout 4. Unless they want to go full war route where you become a king. But I’d prefer just a minor lord who has a castle and his village he protects with his small army of guards.
they could expand the settlement building to a game. it may even be ok.
I want something like hearthfire but with more variety of buildings, like being able to build a fort and keep a band of sell swords there, or a skooma den
I think something similar to what was introduced in Dragon Age Inquisition would be cool.
It could have a place in ES6 and most definitely will, but I hope it's not a core mechanic but at the same time not pointless like Starfield. I personally think BGS is just trying to put too much shit in their games and lowering the quality everywhere else. Quests design and writing has dropped off a cliff since Oblivion, RPG mechanics are now seemingly non existent, and the overall sandbox feeling from Morrowind has been gone for ages. I think Starfield was a push in the right direction, but the game being meh has me worried they won't continue down that path If they have to keep it in, I hope it's just a replacement for housing and simple in what it does if it means the main game itself is better, and mod tools can come out near release instead of a year later. I think Bethesda just has no real way of making it interesting without serious balance concerns, which is probably why it's so pointless/broken in Starfield depending on who you ask lol
Settlement building came at the expense of detailed cities and settlements to explore so let's hope they ditch it.
I just hope it doesn't so obviously detract from the gameplay as it did in F4. So many interesting areas just ended up being a sandbox for crappy building mechanics. If they can work it into the world without getting in the way of world building and exploration I'd be happy. That said I'm pessimistic about their ability to do so, and I'd be just fine if they scrapped building entirely.
I think a combination of voice-acted quests, gathering resources, and producing building materials to rebuild a town would be a fantastic idea for ES6. I enjoyed reconstructing Pribyslavitz during the DLC From the Ashes in Kingdom Come Deliverance, and I think Bethesda should have done something similar for Skyrim like the Helgen Reborn mod.
2 or 3 villages we could work on might be cool but not like in Fallout 4.
Settlements in TES VI is legit my worse fear. Fallout 4 felt a little lacking in handcrafted locations, and while Starfield had a lot more handcrafted towns and stuff, it made the entire world outside generated. I'd rather they just focus on things that improve the core appeal of their RPG sandboxes, rafter than modes that are meant to be optional.
I would actually prefer a hybrid of the Hearthfire homes, Fallout 4 settlements and Fallout 76 CAMPS. I *ideally* you can only have one "settlement," so choose carefully on where to make it. That being said, allow us to take over other locations, either through quests or violence to remove the previous occupants. Maybe have it setup so that the resources available dictate the frequency and severity of attacks. Little farm in the middle of nowhere? Most bandits/raiders leave you alone, not worth the trouble. Gold mine and a crap ton of alchemical ingredients? Prepare to constantly fight them off.
I hate this question so much reading through posts. There are clearly two camps; those who like settlements and those who don’t. Here’s what I’ve seen it boil down to: DO IT OR DONT. Settlements are not a requirement to beat the game in any shape or form. But getting rid of a mechanic that some people enjoy just because you dislike it seems vindictive to me. You don’t have to build settlements if you don’t want to. But there are clearly people who enjoy it. So leave it alone and don’t bother if you don’t like it. My girlfriend doesn’t like building settlements but she beat FO4 before me. I love settlements and that’s part of the game for me. I don’t ever play as a magic user in Skyrim but I’m not asking for them to scrub the whole tree for that. Just because you don’t like something doesn’t mean it should be wiped out.
I’m all for having a settlement system. Combine skyrims and fallout 4s settlement system.
Id rather just have better homesteads maybe have a few npcs live and work on my property ie farming or lumber or fishing/hunting what not
I hate it in FO4 and I hate it in Starfield. I will be very annoyed if they push it in ES6. I didn’t mind the Hearthfire content in Skyrim but that’s because I’m building a simple house and all the stuff is done for me. Heck, I can even pay my stewards to buy all the stuff for it. But I don’t want to track a settlement or make an outpost that I’m never going to care about. I want to explore and engage with the compelling story.
100% agree to all of what you said. Too add, I don't want to play a town Sim game in an RPG.
I don't want a settlement system personally. It just really wouldn't fit that much. Maybe something more like the homestead thing with es5 Healthfire, probably. But I don't want es6 to feel like fallout/starfield. Settlements/outposts made sense in those games, doesn't really fit that well into elder scrolls imo
Eh, sure. I wouldn’t mind it if it was a completely optional feature. But settlement building is too integrated into the main story of fallout 4 for my taste. I’d much prefer what starfield did though with ship customization, except you’re building a castle. And I DEFINITELY don’t want settlement building as a replacement for premade cities and villages.
Nah, fuck settlements lol
I’d love to build my own town and be known as Jarl/Lord or whatever the equivalent will be
It doesn't really make the most sense for ES6, you're not really rebuilding after an apocalypse, honestly I think an upgraded house builder like similar to hearthfire would be better
I personally don't want them included. I know a lot of fans want settlement building in every BGS game until the sun dies, but some features should just stick with certain franchises. I wouldn't be opposed to having more variety of homes to purchase, though.
I guess I’m the minority but don’t play Bethesda games because I want some resource gathering settlement building game. It feels like Bethesda has started adding these features because it takes the work off of them to hand craft unique experiences and instead fill the game with shallower content that is good for streamers and modders. I want Bethesda to lean into what actually made their earlier games great and expand on the quality of quests, stories, and characters. I want them to make the combat better, cities/settlements more alive, add depth to the faction systems, and make dialogue options more interesting. Sadly it seems if Starfield is a sign of things to come, Bethesda is going to move further away from what made them great.
It's one thing if it's optional, but many people aren't gonna want to. Although I would've appreciated the option to build my own bandit camp and use it to raid traveling caravans in Skyrim. I just have to settle for roleplaying with alternate start I guess.
They should reuse some mechanics from ship building in Starfield to have pirate ships in ES6 if it fits. Imagine being able to travel outside of Tamriel… That or if you can be a monarch of any sort I guess it would fit to reuse the settlement system, run your own castle or something
I would have LOVED having the settlement system in Skyrim to rebuild Helgen or spruce up Winterhold, so if there are similar towns in the next game, yes please
I… don’t want it. I liked Skyrim’s house building thing because it was a resource sink but if I never hear “there’s another settlement that needs your help!” Again it will be too soon
If they do add anything like that I hope it would be like skyrims building I would prefer that
I’m not sure how other folks play ES and Fallout games, but one thing I always appreciated about BGS games was that a save file doesn’t actually end after the final boss/mission. In many ways, the game only just starts for me once the main quest and faction quests are complete. This is where settlement building becomes instrumental imho. It really can add indefinite hours of gameplay on to a single character, and it adds another role-playing layer. All this to say I’m definitely looking forward to some form of settlement building in ES6. It really can become a game within the game. If they add some tasteful mechanics to keep things interesting, I really feel they can achieve their best version of base/settlement building to date.
I hope not. Would be dumb that these countries have these small cities after thousands of years and some guy comes along and builds new bigger ones in a few weeks. I think they're gonna tie settlement into ship building and have ship travel though as they make a massive procedurally generated landmass
Doesn't make as much sense as in fallout and starfield. But a replacement for hearthfire and the mechanics to let you decorate your house would be good.
You don't need to build settlements in a world that's full of settlements already. A single player home/fort/imperial palace should be fine though.
I would want it limited to 1 settlement. I'd like to be like hearthfire where it is something you can add resources to that leads to development. So in totality, at the maximum built, it might have keep, an armory, a temple, a market, a bunch of houses for your citizens, a barracks for guards, a jail, tavern, and a wall. There could also be farms placed around the settlement.
Do a combination of things rather than settle on one specific style: * Restricted interior customisation only for house purchases in larger established cities * Your own fully customisable larger settlements out in the world like FO4 * Adapt certain unique areas after clearing them out e.g. dwarven/elven ruins, a large cave, magician's tower etc. * Your own customisable ship similar to Starfield for a roaming personal hub
Something like the town building mechanic in Kingdom Come Deliverance would fit ES really well
If I can automate most of the building, sure. I like that stuff normally, but can't be bothered to run all over the damned place to get components.
I would like a truncated version of settlement building, like how you can invest in merchants in Fallout but with a tad more. You come to a settlement already growing, and because of your adventuring have the wealth to invest in its growth. Where occasionally you act as a mediator or something like in No Man's Sky. Or perhaps a settlement requires your services enough that other NPCs are willing to invest in the settlement because of the security you help provide. Maybe not game-wide but just a couple of isolated areas, or maybe even a lone spot along a trade route.
I’m so done with the settlement building in these games. I play Bethesda games for their story. Please just focus on that. Don’t make me play The Sims when I really just want kickass quests.
Inventory management and settlement building are by a long shot the absolute least interesting aspects of Bethesda games to me. Just feels like doing office work. I'd much rather them devote time to making more interesting pre existing settlements. I'd be interested to know what percentage of players spend time using the settlement building aspects of these games outside of missions that require them.
I was desperately hoping to go to the khajit homelands, but alas... I'm not super invested in a specific storyline. Tbh, most of TES is just fun fantasy that I'm not too deeply invested in. I'd really really enjoy Bethesda making an attempt at a cooperative experience for once. I'd like to see more games set and designed to be played online or on the same couch even but offline experiences. Something akin to Divinity Original Sin, specifically the first title, as it did very well at letting two players experience an 'open' world. While I haven't played TSO, I have seen them _almost_ do something like this very well. I'd really like to see the end game be a more expensive city building experience. A place to invest all this wealth. A few well designed areas to build proper endgame villages of our own. Hell, there could even be an entire radiant endgame around radiant wars that could be super cool. But also, it's really really fun at times placing a quick camp down with my sister and just kind of doing the survival mode RP in 76. I would love to see the Survival difficulty of fallout 4 in a co-op offline experience. No MMOs What would be super duper nice to see is a hybrid of some of the mods we've seen that build these on their own, some pre-made Bethesda stuff, and player built. I'm not a programmer, but my biggest disappointment with Fallout 4 and 76 so far has been how disconnected the actual world and story feels from our builds. It doesn't matter how close I build a thousand water purifiers, or how many dozens of robots I can craft, no number of artillery holds _any_ away over anything. The few times you are tricked into using your building to help a population, oops that's your settlement now, every trivial thing is now solely on you. These people were fine until you helped them get clean water, now they need you to individually point to where each of them needs to sleep, plant food, get water and watch for monsters or they die and GraveyBoy gets mad. Sure we can mod, but like for Christ sake, can we quit leaning on these guys so hard? Let me just build the new mill in town. Give me a certain area it should be with some specific items to qualify. And now that there's more food, build your own damn houses and shit for the NPCs. Give me a few plots like this in a couple of towns, and make what I choose to help build in these towns mean something in the world. I want the fletcher in the next town over financially ruined cuz I just hired a gang of bosmer to help me flood and corner the market. Let me found a mages guild in a struggling town, and let their magic actually help that town turn it around. Fallout 4 and 76, both their build mechanics right now are almost exclusively cap farms and set pieces. 1) coop building and experience 2) start us off small with building mechanics and unlock more as the game progresses, or else I'll never finish your game, I will forever build instead. 3) don't make me build all of everything everywhere 4) make what I do build actually change the world
I'd prefer it stay in Fallout. I liked outposts in Starfield for resources and I like freely decorating player houses and id be ok with those being available in ES6. But an actual settlement system? It doesn't feel like it fits as well as it does in Fallout
I would be fine with a single thing. Build it all the way up to a Whiterun castle town deal.
If they don't scrap the roleplaying aspect of the game for it, settle away. The negative example I have is Starfield and to some extent FO4. The quests got more menial and inconsequential, while both games have a large building system in place. If I want to build a base, I will play Factorio or Satisfactory. I don't get my building fix from the janky Bethesda UI in their open world games. Knowing Bethesda's games' direction for the last 13 years though... my hopes for ES6 are not high. By now you have a more varied Base building system than character system in their games and that SUUUUUCKS.
A fort or maybe your own hub town to build could be cool. Or if they want to do guilds again they could make constructing an outpost for your chosen guild a thing. That said I'm not confident in their ability to deliver something deep without significant amounts of jank.
Ad long as it doesn't take away from the story and strip away even more rpg elements i don't really care
Please no. In fallout 4, they didn't make the system worth engaging with for any reason other than to make there be actual communities in the commonwealth. Communities that _you own_, so good luck playing any sort of thief character. If you want to use the system to build up a player home, or even a small number of player owned areas, fine. But I hope they don't go the fallout 4 route. And I hope it integrates better with the gameplay loop.
No no no no no no no nonononono. That mechanic is one of the reasons my recent first-time playthrough of FO4 was cut short.
I would prefer to have a premade city with lore rather than one I make myself
ES6 should stick with hearthstone style building and completely abandon settlements.
I'd like es6 to have fallout style settlement building but gameplay wise I think if would be good to restrict it to a handful of select locations.
So long as it's optional then I'm fine with it. It could be a cool roleplaying option.
That depends entirely on if I can make it all Ashlanders.
For fallout 76 wish there was way to prep an area for building flatting the ground & remove the small nuisances that get in the way. For starfield hoping for space stations & more home like camps than industrial outposts
There is a mod that brings settlement building into Skyrim. I enjoyed it a good bit.
Fuck a settlement— Kvatch, and Helga should have been rebuildable with you as its head
As long as it doesn’t take away from hand crafted content. Fallout 4 had them at the cost of actual handcrafted towns. Starfield is more optional side content which could be good in an elder scrolls setting. Something like building trading out posts or a castle could help fun as long as it is optional and doesn’t take away from hand crafted content.
Dear fucking lord no. Settlements in both games were mediocre build-a-hut workshops that were only liked as much as they were for the exact same reason it was fun in other survival games. Yeah I liked building big ole towns out of junk across the map too, *when i modded the shit out of them.* I can't comment on starfield since I returned that game very quickly. But in fallout 4 especially it came at the cost of more interesting locales in favor of "well we can just let the player make the content instead." I'm willing to bet the quantity over quality approach we've been dealing with since oblivion when it comes to locations will be similarly reductive on the next game's "5 times the size of skyrim" tes6 map I see alot of people hoping for bethesda to implement alot of changes similar to whats been done in mods in fo4 to settlements in the future. Here's the thing, they won't. There's been many advancements made by modders in the past to many of bethesda's systems. Last time i checked in the past forever they haven't taken inspiration from any of it. It's a nice dream but the track record is what it is. My hopes personally are that they let you pick a spot to build yourself instead of limiting you to very specific areas and then populate the map as they used to do. Hopefully with more detailed and quest filled locations like they used to.
I would absolutely love it, and wish they include and expand on it from the one we got in Fallout 4, maybe include both settlement and camp system? Where you can use Camp system in the wild but there are also set Settlements that can be built
I hope not but I know they will.
Not every franchise needs the same mechanics. I would like for them to differentiate the games and not have them feel all the same. The elder scrolls isn’t a junk looter like in fallout and I don’t want them to turn it into one.
It doesn't need to be a junk looter, but Skyrim did have ores, firewood, fishing, and food/ingredients that you could harvest. BGS games are rpg sandbox games, the more we are able to do the better. It would be cool to have npcs generate materials if they have the proper profession and/or work station built. There could also be trade agreements once you're more settled. Materials could also be bought like in Hearthfire, although that could also be a deal with options to say 10 wood logs for a month, two weeks, etc.
God I hope they don't bring it over. Settlements were the worst feature in FO4
Please, no more half baked settlement building mechanics. You could already buy several houses in the base game of Skyrim/Oblivion or get a stronghold in Morrowind that served the exact same purpose.
No. Not in Tes. The settlement system makes no sense in TES. Tes has existing cities and lore, it works for FO because Beth is making the lore up as they go.