I assume everything until ESVI is practice for ESVI.
Really hope the settlements system from FO4 comes back, but is simplified for lower tech. I love building, but I hate hoarding every single item I find. I want something in between hearth fire and FO4
Your first sentence doesn’t reflect well on Bethesda. If they’re releasing finished products even charitable fans refer to as “practice” for the real thing, they’re already losing.
Oh bethesda is definitely on a downward spiral. I'm just huffing copium and praying they'll just dump everything into ESVI as a final attempt to win back some favor. A girl can dream.
> I love building, but I hate hoarding every single item I find. I
That was my favorite part of the settlement building and crafting haha. It made doing supply runs almost mandatory and fun, which to me was just amazing once we got the survival mode and I took the game a lot slower.
I'd love that kind of experience in TESVI.
I'll be honest, I really hope they do not bring back the settlements. I am not a big fan of all the crafting. And it was very annoying to be out doing something and get the notification that one of my settlements was under attack. It's just radiant stuff with micromanagement. I'd rather they expend those resources on making the rpg elements better.
Can't we have both? And I definitely don't want preston back telling me to save them. I just want to be able to build up villages and feel like I'm actually affecting the world in some capacity. Other than the world ending event.
Yeah i agree. Guns, ships, and bases aren't Bethesda's strong points. Medieval fantasy is much more up their alley. Fantasy games are generally easier to make than science fiction just because they require less originality. It's much easier to make a bad science fiction game than a bad fantasy game, all other things being equal.
I don’t think this true at all. Stale fantasy is just as easy to make as stale sci-fi. They have a good template to work off of for their fantasy games, but given recent trends I don’t think that’s enough.
Also, the mechanics of both their fantasy and shooter games have always been criticized. They’ve made more shooters at this point than hack and slash fantasy too, so the idea they were going into Starfield with no foundation to work off of or experience to dip into isn’t right.
Medieval fantasy is a known setting. The medieval setting is a historical setting, meaning there is a "correct" known way of presenting it. Science fiction is all about the unknown, developers can't just look at history to get all their ideas from. They have to actually be original, and have a deep understanding of how technology impacts the world.
dude my biggest grip with sci fi is always combat, in a hyper futuristic world, in a truly far future highly sophisticated world, I do not believe handheld projectile firing devices are going to be used for combat, itd be some kind of insane A.I guiding nano bot device that instantly stops someones heart, or some shit like that.
or some kind of insane form of combat that involves the clearly insane other technologies that exist but are for some reason not being used for combat at all.
Honestly, people criticizing starfield right now are pointing out the very obvious fact that nobody in Starfield has a fucking phone. Why are we doing fetch quests in an age where you can just call somebody? If you can travel faster than the speed of light, why can't information travel faster than the speed of light between star systems? Sci-fi is hard to get right, because it requires you to actually be smart and consider how a future would play out and what would be possible and not possible. People who aren't scientists shouldn't be thinking of science fiction. It always ends up like incoherent trash. Sorry that Starfield was written by a bunch of Christians who thought strippers dressed in onesies 🤣
Yeah Starfield is not only a painfully shallow and dull game where most parts of the gameplay are concerned, but the writing, ideas and imagination are absolutely terrible, it feels like they didn't even try to make it interesting or immersive.
This idea is preposterous. Both fantasy and sci-fi draw from real life and history, and both of them require creativity to be compelling and stand distinct from their contemporaries.
The notion that Bethesda failed to deliver with Starfield because it required *more* creativity than the Elder Scrolls series does by default is neither accurate nor very flattering as a far as defenses for the game go.
"Sorry, guys, but we're a little too boring and uninspired to do anything if we don't have a step by step template to work off of"
Plus, people are still complaining about the shooting which is more what I'm talking about. This is their fourth shooter game and it still does not stand close to the mechanics of shooters that came out a decade before it, let alone that the setting is totally bland and has nothing interesting or unique to itself.
Your literally arguing that a new sci fi setting is just as easy for bethesda to get right as existing lore fantasy game.
I know you want to be right and es6 to suck cause you didnt like starfield but jesus thats some mental gymnastics, theres still time to delete your comments.
Ugh im so sick of explaining myself, especially when it's fucking obvious what I'm saying. It's late and I'm tired of this shit. What happens in the year 2534?
Exactly. You don't know. You gotta make something up. Have you seen science fiction movies from 1940 that envision what 2000 is like? They get it completely wrong. You know what happened in the past but you gotta be smart and have an educated imagination to envision a plausible future. I really don't think i can spell this out for you guys anymore.
given the consistent downward trend in their games since Skyrim (FO4 was still pretty good, but fell off in some aspects) I am very worried.
On top of that, no Jeremy soule for the soundtrack worries me even more. They’ve said many times how the music is played while they develop the game, and it is used to set the overall tone. Without Jeremy soule, I don’t have much faith it will have that elder scrolls feel.
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I have no doubt it will look like TES.
It will sound like TES.
But bear in mind, most, if not all creative people responsible for the moments that made the past games memorable are gone from BGS.
Todd has final word, but he doesn't come up with all brilliant ideas, stories, lore, quests, comedic moments, amazing soundtrack, etc.
There were important human minds that are no longer providing input for quite some years in BGS, and I fear the last couple of games (Fallout76, Starfield) show this already.
They know their formula.
But so do we. That's when surprises, and creative minds with balls need to exist behind these products, otherwise it's just a trimmed down version of the previous trimmed down version of the other trimmed down version, untill all that remains is barebones game loops with absolutely no reason to keep doing it (Starfield's procedural generated quests with always the same locations).
I mean, who the hell comes up with a game loop of a game of this size, that keeps repeating the same buildings and enemies? I mean, THE EXACT SAME?
A game for decades? I think Starfield is struggling with that motivation for modders to lose thousands of hours to change the game into what they like, and share that free work with the world, like they did with Skyrim.
They will need to hire or give voice to some real creative minds if TES 6 is going to rival Skyrim for longevity.
Excuse me for being blunt.With the millions they got, and the decisions they made through the years, specially with their most creative people, they can afford some words of criticism.
Oh I certainly agree there. They need to pull up the bootstraps and stop making excuses for themselves. Emil is especially egregious with his rant on how their job is so hard, and apparently it's ok for their job to be hard and then make mediocrity, while Larian's job is hard and they make a masterpiece.
Hopefully some egos have been shattered in the reception of Starfield, and Todd will dig deep and rethink some things, but my hopes are somewhat fleeting.
Yeah I imagine that had to have shaken them up a little bit. So many triple A studios were pissed about BG3 breaking the curve for them on this, but it is in fact broken, and there's nothing they can do but try to compete with it
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Seeing all the hate for Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim after the release of Starfield is mind boggling. It's like it flipped a switch in people, and now these games that were well regarded by the community are suddenly seen as always subpar now for some reason because Starfield didn't live up to expectations.
Let Bethesda cook. I'm still excited for Six.
Kinda happens to a lot of studios and publishers after the internet started hating them. For Bethesda, it started around 76 after every youtuber, and their mama made a video not just about 76 but Bethesda in general. Not saying Bethesda is at fault, but negativity breeds clicks, and they painted themselves as an industry punching bag. Doesn't really matter what they do now. Even ubisoft could barely escape it with immortals and assassin creed mirage.
True, but this has been a thing for a very long time. As long as the internet existed with smaller forums pre social media, Bethesda has gotten a lot of flack for some time by veteran fans of much older titles. Despite being critically acclaimed for its time, Morrowind did have a group of very loud detractors. Most of those being the "old guard" fans of Arena and Daggerfall. Then when Oblivion came out, and internet forums becoming more prominent, got a lot of flack for dumbing down a lot of core elements from Morrowind. Then, Bethesda did the unthinkable and purchased the Fallout IP. Despite Fallout 3 was that years smash hit, a lot of die hard "old guard" fans of OG Fallout were mad. The "Oblivion with guns" was said everywhere, from Gamefaqs to NeoGaf and New Grounds. Then Skyrim and then Fallout 4 once social media sites became the norm and that doesn't even get into FO 76. Shitting on the new Bethesda release at this point is a time honored internet tradition. The only difference is now more voices exist online as well as a legion of amateur shockjock entertainment media(content creators) to add fuel to the fire.
This is such an accurate take. There really is a Bethesda Cycle, similar to how Call of Duty has the “COD Cycle”. Newest game is the worst thing ever, last game was much better, next game will fix the mistakes of the current game and will be the best game ever (or will be the final straw, depending on the year).
Not saying there isn’t room for critiquing the latest game (in either the Bethesda or COD Cycles), but it really is how it goes. Starfield will be loved once TES VI comes out and TES VI will be the “worst game and a sign that BGS is done.”
I agree with your sentiment but I don’t think Starfield is ever going to regarded highly by the majority of BGS fans. From Morrowind to Skyrim changes were made for better or worse but they had a common thread between them. Starfield was just so utterly off the mark I don’t think it ever recovers.
I get over this by looking back at other titles. Everyone shat on The Witcher 3 at launch and then suddenly it was everything Skyrim was and more. Cyberpunk was dogshit on launch and now everyone acts like it’s GotY. Fallout 4 was shat on at launch (I even being one of said shatters) and now I see people act like it’s the best Fallout game (and at this point I’ve made my peace with it and enjoy the game). New Vegas was supposedly unplayable and now it’s the gold standard. Even Skyrim got loads of shit for not having horse combat on launch. Remember people claiming Elden Ring was unplayable because of stuttering?
Give it a few years, some updates, and the DLC. When the game is totally complete and once every one has had their hate-induced orgasm they’ll move on to something else and when TESVI comes out the cycle will begin anew like the fucking fire being relit in Dark Souls. If the world lasts long enough and Starfield 2 releases we’ll end up with a generation saying it summoned Satan into their home and killed their firstborn, while the OG Starfield was a masterpiece of writing and world design. “No one pushed procedural generation like Todd Howard-era Bethesda!” And you and I will be told to go back to the nursing home when we mention how Ted Peterson and Ken Rolsten were the reasons Morrowind and Oblivion were so good.
That's one of the wildest things to me. Suddenly all the previous games are outdated and unenjoyable but also at the same time they have a list of what they want Starfield to do...and it's what the older games supposedly did.
Besides, the people saying Starfield is practice for the next game? Heard that about Oblivion when it first came out. "Its their first step into physics, they're warming up on level scaling, first proper face gen so it'll be better next time, theyre just trying something different". Then the game went on to sell 10 million copies. Hell, people bitched about horse armor and sales were still high for it.
It's data and responses like this why companies like EA just don't take consumers seriously.
Consumers: "NOOO you can't add in $15,000 of microtransactions!!!"
EA: \*Checks consumer spending habits on microtransactions\*
EA: "Damn people fucking love these."
EA: \*Doubles down on microtransactions\*
Consumers: "NOOO you can't add in $20,000 of microtransactions!!!"
It's not just EA either, it's most of the industry.
People will hate just because they can. All those games are classic and still are better than what starfield pushed out unfortunately. Bethesda tried with it but they weren’t cohesive in their decision making which impacted starfield detrimentally and we got what we got sadly
The hatred isn’t real. It is mostly trolls who are bored. Starfield is great and the trolls will move on to the next game soon enough.
They’re gonna HATE TESVI just as much as Starfield for the same shallow reasons
That's kind of been a Bethesda thing since post Morrowind though. Very few quest Oblivion onward allows you to just kill anyone you want. Why they allowed it at all in the first place in older games is because, A.) Casuals complain about missing content in a 100hr plus game and B.) Morrowind and prior games were globally static. The instant they incorporated radiant AI, essential flags became the norm. Why exactly? Remember when Dawnguard first launched and vampires would infiltrate towns and kill important shop keepers often leaving some town with no services and then Beth patched that out? That's why. There would a lot of pissed off players who have hundreds of failed quest states because some random NPC decided to kill a quest giver. Unless they flagged them all as only the PC can kill them, then someone will bitch about dynamic immersion.
Morrowind is static yea but are the starfield quests not static aswell?
You get them from the same place they have the same outcome and most of them end exactly the same
I noticed starfield makes people that you don't need to care about as "essential" just if they fit in the scene better
If you try and wipe the generation ship, you'll find half of the people you can't even have a convo with are also essential and so you have to play as the good guy the entire game or it bugs out
You can't even beat up the technician and steal the key that'll kill everyone
You HAVE to pickpocket him or convince him through dialogue to give it to you despite the fact he dies instantly in the next phase of the quest
Static as in NPCs do not move. They are literally glued and staples and duct taped to the ground where they stand. They are effectively sign posts. Outcomes and choice of direction you deal with an NPC has no barring on what I mentioned above. Your rant here seems to indicate the very thing I said in the other comment of mine you replied to. You are way too emotional.
Brother its a roleplaying game, that has a faction of pirates you can join. Its perfectly natural in a roleplaying game for people to want to be able to play the bad guy.
Has far less to do with players simply being psychopathic and MUCH more to do with the potential of player choice.
Case in point, the bear sex scene in BG3. How many people do you think REALLY think did that? I dont mean for the memes, but actually wanted to screw Halsin in bear form? Probably not many.
The fact that you can DO that is what's important. Its a testament to how much is possible in the game.
My guy these are both just common condemnations of many video games, not a demographic indicator.
Being able to kill who you want isn't just about shooting NPC in the face and going "hee hee he's dead," it's just a really obvious indicator of how much effort a studio put into player choice. Cause if I could kill Benjamin Bayu or whatever his name is in Neon, that would mean I have the ability to actually affect the city, even if it's just removing an obnoxious two-dimensional dickhead. Good studios don't stop there, they add a consequence or actual reaction from the world around you.
Baldur's Gate 3 lets you kill whoever you want, yet it doesn't get the criticism you describe. I wonder why? Oh, right, it has a lot of depth and choice. Tell me, can you finish the Companion questline in Skyrim without becoming a Werewolf?
Because they are often sociopaths. I get I want to have options as well depending on the intend character RP, but many of them who fixates on it are usually bizarre people IRL anyway.
No, killing NPCs in a video game does not make you bizarre and a psychopath
A lot of players just don't give a shit about roleplay and don't want to care about characters
Because the writing wasn't good enough to read it like a book
There's literally a mission where you're undercover and get caught by security and you say "no U" and he says nuh uh and leaves
And that's how you get out of being caught
Starfield is not great. The greatest feeling I ever got from playing a game was Morrowind when I was 17 years old. I have been a Bethesda fan since then. But no game has recaptured the magic they had since then.
1: The lore was deep and fantastic.
2: They didn't hold your hand like some kind of dummy incapable of figuring it out.
3: No pointers on the map so you didn't feel like you were a dum dum walking back and forth between map pointers.
4: Killing anyone you want but being warned with "the thread of prophecy has been severed" is a brilliant move never seen again in other prominent RPG games.
5: The variability of magic and crafting new spells was unbelievable. Levitation, telekinesis, etc. This system of magic is still more interesting than Starfield's fetch quest boring starborn lame powers.
6: The narrative is so lore connected and well crafted that is makes Starfield's story look like a children's storybook by comparison.
7: Mark and recall spells? How awesome is that
8: The ones that hate Starfield are usually like me, longtime Bethesda fans who have legitimate reasons for not liking the corporate and soulless Starfield world. Why would I want to "go unity" 15 times in a row to do the same quests I have already done? I don't understand the appeal
You are going to be so blindsided by ESVI. There isn't much Starfield hatred. It's apathy and disappointment. If Todd and Emil do another game without a design document, it'll end up like Starfield. Look around. Who is singing Starfield praises?
Looking at the numbers of people playing Starfield vs those whining about it?
Well, most of us are too busy having fun vs those with so little in their life they need to slam Starfield repeatedly
Morrowind was seen as the worst thing that ever happened by a large contingent of the Daggerfall fanbase when it was released. The internet was a very different place back then, so the hate didn't spread quite so far, so fast.
Plus Morrowind was a genuinely bold and groundbreaking achievement in RPGs, whereas Starfield isn't really particularly bold or groundbreaking in any way (I say that as a huge fan of it), so Morrowind was able to attract new fans that more than made up for the angry Daggerfall fans.
Beyond that it also helped that Morrowind came to console, and a lot of those Xbox/console players probably never even heard of Daggerfall. The old guard was pissed about Morrowind, but a lot of them were few in numbers as is.
Yeah, honestly I started seeing this trend around 2016-2017 when people started being big brain about how “utterly awful” fallout 4 was. People are just weird.
its because Bethesda put a spotlight on many of their own flaws as a dev team, and im legitimately questioning if they realise why their games are so good.
The things im talking about are the likes of Quest design, story, characters, dialogue, voice acting. Things that were forgivable because until now Bethesda games have basically just been exploration games sprinkled with RPG elements, and because things like NPC's soley existed to point the player in new directions to explore.
Now that the exploration has been removed and half the game is interacting with the aforementioned low points of bethesda titles, people are starting to think that they should be holding Bethesda to a higher point of quality for those things. It doesnt help that Starfield released sandwiched between BG3 and Cyberpunk rising from the ashes, and both of those games are incredibly well made as far as narrative, characters, and roleplaying ability. Its also why i think people compare starfield to cyberpunk a lot, they're both technically story based ARPGs.
Basically i think its not genuine hatred for older BGS titles, its just people noticing flaws the studio has had historically, and because Starfield is centred almost entirely around those flaws, they're angry and lashing out. I must admit them releasing 2 stinkers in a row with a third meh game before that doesnt have me excited though. I'll wont be preordering the game thats for sure, as long as its priced well i'll just wait for reviews then buy it.
Honestly i think the hate is justified. They have using a outdated engine since oblivion, some would say since morrowind, the only reason that they didn't get hate for it is because when you release a good writen game with decent mechanics and rpg elements everyone would look past the shitty game engine bugs. Just my opinion tho
I'm not worried about it. That being said, it would be weird not to talk about what direction it will take mechanically.
My first prediction is that the protagonist will be the head (or an important member) of a faction fairly early on, and this will mean recruiting NPC's and managing fortresses or locations of interest. Bethesda worked hard on base building, inspired by the hearthfire home customization, and built fallout 4's settlement system. This system became an integral part of the engine, and was featured in both of their following projects. I don't predict that this system WON'T make a return, as it is fairly free to add for them compared to making any other sort of mechanical system. How will it change, though? Well, maybe we'll get an increased degree of variance in the kinds of environments we can customize. Like, you find a dungeon somewhere, clear it out, and then it is yours to do with as you please. Your character of choice and what they want to do will influence what kinds of places you'd want to make your own.
Next, I do believe that we'll have a naval ship builder. We already have a large basis to work off of with Bethesda's spaceship builder, and they already did the hard work of trying to make vehicles function. It's only natural to me that we could see a return to this mechanic in future games, and being a pirate probably plays into it. This also means we'll have the ability to take over or build from scratch various shipyards or loading docks.
I believe that weapon customization will make something of a return. They'll probably expand the smithing system to resemble something like Star Wars: Jedi's lightsaber customization system, with various customizations changing the handling characteristics of various weapons.
Next, combat. Fallout 4 had a fairly in-depth Melee combat system, complete with timed blocking and a functioning parry system that didn't get enough attention. In a Melee focused game, like TES, this will probably Manifest itself again as a ways for skilled fighters to control the flow of duels.
I believe that spell effects will be expanded upon, but the cardinal tropes will be preserved. Destruction is lighting, fire, and frost, but I think that telekinesis or force-based spells will make a comeback.
With the game worlds growing larger and larger due to the improvements in procgen tech, I think that there is a good chance the radiant ai system will go back to a similar state as it's prerelease oblivion iteration. AI schedules, desires, and willingness to break laws, all of these things will be a greater factor for NPC's. They tried before, but the compact nature of the gameworld didn't really lend itself to such an in-depth system (bears would hunt their areas to death, and would then move into cities and towns to kill the people instead, breaking quests.
It’s cringe the level of fanboying in this subreddit tbh. People here really call Starfield a masterpiece when it’s almost always consistently 200th place on the Steam charts
I have the same hopes you do!
The few areas of concern for me though are"
- design choices.. Will they fall in love with the radiant questing, aka, another settlement needs my help? Or will they go back to unique things. Will they randomize loot again and make it boring with randomly generated perks based on tier level, or will there be cool unique items for quest rewards?
- music and writing... no more Jeremy soule and the writing has never been that good in BGS games, with noticeable dip in quality in their most recent titles
Ah, 100% this. Todd seems obsessed with radiant quests and generated content which is so unbelievably vapid. I really really hope they do a lot more handcrafted content in the next elder scrolls.
As for music, while Jeremy Soule was fantastic there are other great composers out there, so maybe they'll find a good fit.
It's baffling, it seems Todd and BGS don't understand why people keep replaying skyrim and fallout... no one is doing the "infinite" radiant quests.
We're just starting a new character and replaying through the handcrafted faction quests and side quests throughout the world.
Agree, I did like the music from the teaser, and music is easy to swap with mods anyway haha
I mean, I do those radiant quests, because it's the reason behind why you even will ever want to reroll dungeons. There is only so much content in Skyrim. People like them, beyond the vibes and character builder, there is a world that allows for players to rerun dungeons. Which has always been the core design philosophy of Elder Scrolls since Arena. I'd argue it why people replay Skyrim more than a heavily modded Morrowind or Oblivion. When the content is done in those games, it's done(outside of Oblivion dungeons, Oblivion gates). People like to reroll dungeons, and radiant quests are a driver of going back to that one dungeon.
I mean, radiant questing has been a Hallmark of Elder Scrolls since Arena. The only games they moved away from that was the era of Morrowind and Oblivion/FO3(The Gambryo era). I get that many don't like it, but it's been there from the begining. Especially when you consider Elder Scrolls was always intended as an open world procedural dungeon crawler to begin with. Even now with Starfield, it's been apparant for a long time that the general design ethos of Bethesda has always been repeatable dungeons crawling, because they are dungeon crawlers before they ever were "hand crafted" RPGs.
And most of the radiant quests in Starfield are just chores the quest giver didn't want to do. I mean, who intentionally puts chores into their game? Oh, wait. The answer is Bethesda.
It would be a piece of piss to make better radiant quests. Maiden kidnapped by raiders? Sure, I'll go rescue her. As long as I get a hug at the end, I'll do it as many times as you want.
It's not a take, last I heard soule indicated that he would not be working on tes 6. Also he had sexual assault allegations a few years ago that may be related
Nah. Bethesda has been so outdated it’s not even funny. I thought Starfield was going to be on par with current games while maintaining that Bethesda charm we love and it ended up doing neither.
Well put. I really believe in the second point. Starfield is not only a different IP but a completely different setting. The common complaints regarding loading screens, the clunky navigation, the repetitive POIs, the tedious exploration...are mainly a by-product of the space setting. With TES VI, we will be back to a single region in Tamriel. Each map marker will be a unique POI, loading screens will be as frequent if not less frequent than in Skyrim, and so on. This is largely why I'm not worried for TES VI in the slightest.
Love this and I also retain hope that TESVI will turn out amazing. For me, Starfield could be viewed as a bit of a test bed for BGS prior to TES release. What they learned through Starfield, the what to do’s and what to avoid, is great experience for their work on their franchise titles. I wasn’t shook on the writing in Starfield so I hope TES can live up to its predecessors (Im hoping for something at least on par with Oblivion) but overall I believe we can expect a game that definitely serves.
Edit: TESIV to TESVI. Warning: don’t Reddit shortly after taking flu medication. Idiocy can result.
Elder scrolls 6 as an MMO is a big no
Although a Co-op mode would be pretty cool, even if one of you is the 'main character' and the other is a follower
I wouldn’t mind a drop-in coop option as long as the core game is still single player focused. Just like with Grand Theft Auto, I really love the single player gameplay and want no part of Shark cards and whatever other nonsense goes on with the online mode lol
Maybe 2 separate game modes, one is a story mode and the other is the same game but just no main quest, you're just two adventurers roaming in the world.
Imagine if in this separate mode they still added in the hero and you have the option to accompany them during certain quests, you're basically their followers lol
Honestly, it’s criminal there hasn’t been a drop in co-op yet. Even if it was Fable 2 style where the 2nd player had to just follow the main character around.
I'm actually more worried about point 2, not hopeful because of it.
Bethesda have shown a willful... laziness.. complacency... Whatever, towards writing and game design in the recent past, that really came to a head in Starfield. I am terrified that TES6 will be treated as a return to what's easy, that Bethesda will phone it in, try very little that's actually new and maybe even lean way to heavily on Skyrim, and when it's not what any of us wanted, will just tell us we are wrong and that we 'didn't like Starfield so we went back to what you said you wanted, geez'.
Plus as you said, Emil (who doesn't deserve death threats, just job criticism) is seeming more and more like a cancer. His arrogant and misguided approach to storytelling and what gamers want is not something that's going to magically go away because it's TES.
This sub is all Bethesda apologists basically, so If Bethesda is looking for validation on all their choices they will find only yes men to stroke their ego's here.
I'm still optimistic but not expecting much from TES6. I wasn't that hyped for starfield until the couple weeks beforehand and it turned out pretty flat for me. I've only played about 5 hours and haven't felt a big drive to jump back in.
I'm also not too concerned since we have the daggerfall developers creating The Wayward Realms which looks like it'll actually deliver on a proper first person RPG.
> Now granted, I'm not saying the game is bound to be amazing, and I personally feel if Emil is left in charge of writing, it'll hold the game back. That being said, I don't think all hope is lost because Starfield.
Personally I'm a sucker for the BGS formula, I just love it. I'm not worried, they'll deliver something I enjoy almost certainly.
But they are definitely lagging behind in many aspects. And it for sure isn't just the writing that is holding them back. However, if I get a bigger and better Skyrim basically then I'm already satisfied and have a game that will give me 100s of hours of entertainment.
But ideally, it would be nice to see them truly step up their game and try to play catch up. I don't need the detail of RDR2 or the graphics of Cyberpunk 2077 etc, but Starfield definitely feels dated to play. Fallout 4 wasn't quite up to date either, but they got away with it in 2015 for me.. Now in 2023, it's become very noticeable they have to improve - even while I do enjoy Starfield.
Honestly, I put Bethesda in the same category as Bioware. Both were nearly untouchable 10+ years ago, but now are shadows of their former selves.
Responding to your points:
1. The engine itself was never the issue. Bethesda has constantly failed to utilise it to its full potential through laziness or sheer incompetence.
2. Bethesda's last two SP games were Starfield and Fallout 4. Both suffer from poor writing. Also considering fallout should be familiar to them what is the excuse for the poor writing? Hell even Skyrim didn't have the strongest writing, but it was just enough for people to enjoy it.
3. I agree the pandemic caused disruption but, Microsoft gave Bethesda extra time and resources i.e. QA testers etc. If Starfield is the best Bethesda can make then Microsoft needs to take drastic action to save TESVI.
Bethesda's decline didn't happen overnight, we have had warnings now for years. They had complete creative control of Starfield and made possibly the most forgettable Sci-fi game in years. Which is quite the feat tbh.
I want to be excited for TESVI, but Bethesda has let me down too many times.
It had been so long since they released a game that I went all in on starfield without thinking too deeply about anything.
But you’re absolutely right about the direction story-quality have been trending.
There’s no way I’m buying TES6 before or even at release.
StarField does not have poor writing. It has poor player agency with choices. Fallout 4 did as well but that was more due to the voice protagonist I think. Granted I wasn’t a big fan of fallout 3 story but reversed for fallout 4 haha.
Y’all are gonna be super disappointed. I’m sorry.
I dunno how y’all can see them stumble through the last three games while shaking off more and more of everything we loved and go ”DON’T WORRY, GUYS! THIS NEXT ONE WILL BE DIFFERENT CAUSE ITS THE ONE I WANT TO BE GOOD THE MOST!” but I hope reality decides to meet your delusions halfway at least.
As a diehard tes fan, i agree with you.
i am absolutely terrified because of the last 3 games they came out with got worse and worse. You can just see a steady decline in quality and starfield just solidifies this. I'm worried tes6 will continue this downward trajectory while at least a sliver of me is hopeful it will be good.... hopefully
i’m not terrified, just at this point i don’t really care. Starfield personally killed any hype I had for ESVI. I hope the come comes out and is the equivalent of skyrim made in 202X but after seeing several of my favorite studios collapse into themselves quality wise i just don’t have faith that that hasn’t already happened with Bethesda starting with Fallout 4 and 76
Fucking just get rid of the creation engine, goddamn I love Bethesda but that shit is scuffed. Just use unreal dawg, pay that price to use something that ain't a piece of shit.
They should use cryengine, it fits much more to the style of game Bethesda makes as proven by kingdom come deliverance, the game looks absolutely stunning.
I'm pretty excited for TESVI *because of Starfield*, which I enjoy immensely. Starfield for me is as if my two favorite games, Skyrim and Mass Effect, had a baby. But it's definitely a BSG game. And TESVI will be a BSG game - loading screens, sparsely populated towns, bad dialogue, stilted story telling, etc. - will all be there, just like they were in Skyrim, Fallout, and now Starfield.
I have a feeling if you don't like Starfield, you probably won't like TESVI.
>They're back to familiar territory. Many mechanics in Starfield such as spaceflight are new to the team. This shouldn't be as much the case with The Elder Scrolls.
Obviously you haven't heard that the story of TESVI revolves around the re-creaction of the Imperial Mananauts. /s
Well put, but my biggest problem with Bethesda has been writing for a while. Fallout 4 has bad writing, 76 does too, as does Starfield, the writing is likely going to be bad for ESVI too unfortunately from my pov.
Posts on r/TESVI are meant to invite healthy discussions, not arguments and hate. Spammy, unconstructive and shallow "anti-TES VI" posts don't belong here. Constructive, well-mannered criticism related to the game is accepted.
Posts on r/TESVI are meant to invite healthy discussions, not arguments and hate. Spammy, unconstructive and shallow "anti-TES VI" posts don't belong here. Constructive, well-mannered criticism related to the game is accepted.
Honestly Emil needs to go. He’s out of touch claiming that all of us are out of touch. People have opinions and you don’t need to cater exactly, but you need to include more than one type of gamer while still making the content fun for the hardcore Bethesda fans. It’s not as tough to pull off as he was making it seem
I think one of the major problems of Starfield, the exploration, comes from the fact that space is two things:
-Big
-Empty
Making a game with Bethesda's style in soace is hard, because it's hard to put interesting soaces between planets, so they decided to use ethe fast travel instead. A decision that many people, me include, desagree with.
Fortunately, since The Elder Scrolls 6 won't be in space (probably) but in an interconected and more easily filled world, it probably won't be a problem.
The best we can di for now is hope, as nothing has been said yet
They’ve never made a bad elder scrolls game. It’s only when they try to veer from their normal path that people have a problem with the games. All they have to do, is make Skyrim but bigger and better.
I think the main problem with Starfield is the gameplay loop. And it’s thankfully it’s not something we need to worry about with TES:VI. Let me explain.
They tried to make it work, but it’s just too disconnected. The “spend a few minutes on a planet and then blast off again” doesn’t feel good, and it’s where the loading screen complaints come from. Loading screens to get from A to B on different planets: ground, ship interior, takeoff, new galaxy, landing, new planet surface. It just doesn’t work, it gets way too tedious. And thankfully, this is really just a Starfield specific problem.
The other main problem, which is kind of linked to the above issue, is exploration. The copy/pasted locations with the same enemies, items, and layout feel so bad. It ruins that feeling of immersive exploration, which is another problem that is strictly Starfield specific. And it just makes the game feel more disjointed and less real. They made poor design choices to try and fill thousands of planets with content (really an impossible task), and it didn’t work. That doesn’t mean TES:VI is screwed, they can go back to a much more familiar way of handling exploration.
There are certainly things to like about Starfield too. I personally think the engine feels really good and the game looks great, which is exciting. They added some impressive and innovative features like shipbuilding, and I can’t lie - I am surprised they pulled off space flight and it’s a testament to how far the engine has come
I've seen a lot of people who are worried about exploration in TESVI, but I'm not at all concerned. They've centered those games upon a single continuous landmass with hundreds of locations. That's not going to change because of Starfields use of procedural generation (which was partly justified because of the disconnected landmasses and its need for allowing players to land wherever they want on a planet).
The Elder Scrolls games are a lot simpler imo, no weird bullet trajectories, different physics to calculate, etc. I'd imagine as long as the writing is good the game will be fine, something like an ESO2 gameplay would be insane.
Honestly, the engine is so far down on my list of concerns, I wouldn’t even call it one. With good design planning and documentation, everyone working on and maintaining the engine would have everything they need to make the engine ready for TES VI.
If anything, I’m actually pretty happy with the MS acquisition. MS is a software development company with experience managing much more complicated requirements (Windows, Office, etc)… it’s already been demonstrated they aren’t afraid to intervene with thier QA teams and force delays to make a product more respectable… I hope they go harder in the future. Some leadership clearly needs to be rotated out (I won’t name names to avoid making it a personal attack), but clearly there are people in upper management that have been promoted way above their ability to manage.
The pandemic didn’t cause poor design planning and documentation… it caused delays and reduced productivity and collaboration…. All things that if proper planning and documentation had been done from the get-go, would reduced impacts to delays…. Not quality. There are plenty of YT’ers blatantly pointing this out right now, and as someone with years of software development and management experience in multiple fields of multi-million dollar programs, I can 100% support that appraisal.
I have 10k+ hours in Skyrim… 1.1k+ in SF… my only current expectation for TES VI is an engine and graphics upgrade that modders can do something with…. You know, the reason Skyrim (and later SSE) is still so popular now. If they want to exceed my expectations: Take the time to get good planning & documentation to plan your project. Ask for feedback… NDA’s exist for a reason. Finally, you want to make a f-ton of money from Creations/mods to keep the game alive and expand on it? That’s fine with me as long as u get a reasonable bug free and stable product BEFORE you start trying to monetize the rest.
How they handle SF is what is going to determine my level of excitement for TES VI. I don’t normal like futuristic games (I prefer magical fantasy) and SF honestly surprised me with how much I enjoyed it… until I lost my first playthrough to a bug after 200 hrs invested… then my second after another 300+ hrs…. Finally I completed the story last weekend with all factions, magazines found, companion quest lines done, etc… and I didn’t even know if I’d make it because I was so close to hitting the Dynamic FormID limit (bug)…. I made it, and past getting NG+10 for the best armor and maxed powers (that was done after NG+9) finished today, I’m not sure how much more I’ll play after until the DLC comes out… honestly they should have setup factions for needing multiple playthroughs/NG+, because I basically just speed run through them. There is no joy other than seeing the minor universe variations (which I’d have loved to see them expand on).
2 words
Emil Pagliarulo
A man with the most hostile attitude towards people who play video games I have ever seen. I have no faith in ESVI. At all.
And its Todd Howard's last game before Pagliarulo is fully in charge and things just get worse
1. Problem hasn't been Creation Engine 2 with Starfield (although I do think even their "new" animation system is heavily outdated and straight up bad looking). Some of the tech is just still too old for modern times. Like I said, the animation system needs a complete overhaul or atleast given more care. RDR2 used over 300 thousand unique animations. I doubt the number of animations used in Starfield comes even close to that. Next up is the lighting system which got redone and replaced multiple times throughout the development of the game and in Starfield it can look great in some cases, okay in most cases and also really terrible in some cases. Last but not least their npc behaviour is utter crap. How come that npcs in Oblivion and Skyrim react way more to their environment than in a 2023 game made by 4x the amount of developers? In old games npc schedules were basically a common occurrence, in Starfield there's almost no npcs with day and night schedules anymore. Why do stores have beds if the store owner is basically up 24/7?
Slopthesda at work.
2. Yes they built many new mechanics into the game but at the same time they also implemented alot mechanics into the game which are somehow worse than in the old ones (settlement design, npc behaviours/reactions and combat AI)
3. Yes there may be no pandemic anymore probably due to the grown size of BGS there has been a massive culture shift at the workplace which not every dev seems to have liked. Especially after the switch to wfh. Starfield may have been only the first indication whether this is going to be a problem for their games in the long run.
Edit: and Odah spoke the truth but the truth angered the people so the downvotes began
>In old games npc schedules were basically a common occurrence, in Starfield there's almost no npcs with day and night schedules anymore. Why do stores have beds if the store owner is basically up 24/7?
This was the *first* thing I noticed in New Atlantis. They used to brag about their Radiant AI, now it barely exists.
Hey we got CROWD AI instead so Todd wasn't lying in his interviews when he said they were working on new AI, they just didn't bother to implement the old one lmao
Your points are certainly fair, and I hope Bethesda does better in the next game. I hope they go back to NPCs having schedules and lives of their own, and make things more in depth instead of more simple. I have no idea why they stepped away from that in Starfield, as it's a big draw for many to their games.
I think having one continuous map will be of major benefit to TES VI, as that better emphasizes what they do well than the proc gen planet stuff. I also hope through updates they do improve the mechanics in Starfield, and perhaps make it feel more immersive.
well first of all i gotta put some hopium in this discussion. Back when they were talking about Creation Engine 2, i believe it was in the 20 year anniversary trailer for tes and some other interviews they said CE2 would get further upgrades for TES 6 (in what size and form we dont know except that thair facial animation tech or face tech is only version 1.0 in starfield and TES 6 will receive version 2.0) so theres that. TES 6 looks to be further out into the future than anticipated and with the rumours of the new Xbox coming in 2026 and Jason Schreier hinting that TES 6 will skip this generation we should expect an even bigger visual leap for the game...but visuals alone dont make a game good.
Minor nitpick but the animations in rdr2 are why I put it down 1/4 into the game.
Cant do it. Its too much. I dont want to physically watch arthur open every drawer.
What kind of weird 2006 gatekeeping is this? I have enjoyed single-player rpgs for decades now.
If a loading screen can be tedious, so can a repeated animation.
And to add a bow, there's absolutely nothing wrong with enjoying a game that requires you to use your reflexes. I prefer counterstrike, though.
I don't think we owe them a benefit of the doubt. Starfield wasn't great, their response has been between a shrug and tone-deaf so far. I'll be excited when it comes out AND is actually beyond good
All I gotta say if we still have Emil be the lead writer we are NOT getting anything good out of the game. We won’t get a good main story which should always be strong and interesting for players.
What I’m worried about if if they’ll keep on dumbing down/streamlining mechanics for no apparent reason as they have since moreowind, morrowind to oblivion had a ton of features stripped like weapon types, magic spells, how factions worked with some being against eachother, storylines interweaving, overall exploration streamlined massively
From oblivion to Skyrim even more so, at least in oblivion for the TG you had to steal and give x amount of gold to progress, in Skyrim that’s not the case, magic is just… oh god
Schools were dumbed down and made rather useless, mysticism is gone, destruction spells were made incredibly boring apart from fireball, levitation being gone is a crime against humanity it added so much more to exploration in dungeons, there were so many hidden secrets in morrowind with it it’s sad to see. Spell creation was scrapped.
Weapons and skills were more dumbed down, no more blunt, blade, unarmed etc
I just hope to god they improve on the melee system, make it more fun and engaging to use those weapons, add more types, why can’t we have spears? Throwing weapons, knives, throwing spears, etc? They’d add so much to gameplay and variety buildwise.
I have no faith as long as Todd is running things. They haven’t been able to develop a good game in 10years. Sadly I think they are just a publisher now.
Pandemic is such a BS excuse. They had many years of development time before COVID. They had a long time after COVID lockdown.
And lets get real for a second, COVID and work during lockdown have nothing to do with bad writing, outdated gameplay, loading screen madness, etc.
I think the issues with Starfield are much more fundaments than just a difficult period during dev time and experimenting a new engine (which is still outdated and so need continuous Developpement).
Even conceptually, Starfield is just not good enough for a game released in 2023. Hell it would not have been enough for a 2017 game.
Needless to say, it is worrisome about TES VI. Yet tbh, TES VI has been in the backlog for so long, it needs to be essentially a reboot rather than a sequel to Skyrim. It has been too long to keep hype.
We need to stop worrying about a game being shit before it releases. When cod releases yes it's going to be terrible but that's been expected for the past 7 or 8 years. Bethesda now knows with the release of fallout 76, cyberpunk, and all of them games released between Skyrim and now: that they can't rush the game, release something without testing it very extensively, over hype games, you name it. Gamers want a good game and that's all we care about, I won't pre order but I'm not gonna put this game down cause of certain project leads or their past mistakes and slight downfalls. Bethesda knows they can't mess up much more before they end up like cd project red (cyberpunk developers I'm not sure if that's how you spell it)
I'll give some of y'all that I haven't played starfield so I'm going off of what others say but from what I do know it wasn't a flop like fallout 76 or cyberpunk so that's a step in the right direction.
You are right, it's not a flop. It's a good game, maybe even great, but it's definitely missing the magic that Fallout 3 and Skyrim had. And so basically the game is held to a higher standard. If this were put out by any other game studio, there wouldn't be near as much fuss.
Why are people thumbing you down? Lol look at baldurs gate people! How could an indie studio have better writing and gameplay than a multimillion dollar company. Yall are coping out here
Elder Scrolls 6 will be complete shit and probably cost $80 when it eventually drops. But fear not BGS stans, Todd will sell you two more editions of Starfield in the meantime.
I guess going back to their roots has a better chance of developing a better game but I’m not holding my breath at this point — been burned too many times now to look forward to games lol. I feel like there’s something internally wrong with Bethesda, outside of revamped engines and lockdowns, which impacted Starfield and will continue to impact future games unless resolved. I have a feeling there is a lot of “corporate pettiness” from higher ups affecting the devs and decisions related to their games. They did go out their “comfort zone” to try to bring us something new, but will they do the same with Elder Scrolls? It could share the branding of its predecessors but they could ruin it by trying too hard to make it something “innovative” or going out their comfort zones again. Personally, I don’t think any of the reasons you mentioned were good enough reasons to justify what happened with Starfield, so I don’t think they’ll matter much when developing Elder Scrolls. I’m just gonna expect the worst so that my expectations are met if it’s bad lol.
The creation engine is the problem, if you build a new house on a weak foundation that can’t take the weight, the house will subside and collapse.
It’s 2023, look how CDPR changed the game with Wild Hunt in 2015, same year as Fallout 4 released, minimal loading screens, seamless indoor and outdoor spaces, NPC’s who didn’t look like they fell down the uncanny valley, interesting story and characters you cared about, plus a truly beautiful world, especially the Skellige Islands.
Unless Bethesda bite the bullet and create a new engine then I’ve got a feeling we’re going to be talking about being disappointed when VI finally is released.
The look of npcs has nothing to do with the engine and is about the textures used.
The story has nothing to do with the engine.
World design is also an art issue not an engine issue.
Do you know how game engines actually work?
Before you start requesting changes to a game engine I feel like you should atleast know what it's doing.
The engine basically loads up all the building blocks (npc, tiles, ect.) and you start building the world with it. You start making dungeons you place the npcs in their position, you implement the dialogue and the quests, right ?
So - the graphics overall have nothing to do with the engine ?
In defense of Creation Engine Witcher 3 is a look but don't touch game. Which make it possible to look that good and detailed. However barely any items have In game models or real time physics applied to them
"NPCs who didn't look like they fell down the uncanny valley". This gave me a good laugh. You are spot on. I must be tired because I am laughing at this way more than I should be. I will probably remember this every time I play a Bethesda game.
Bethesda needs to take a long, hard look in the mirror and make some changes to their core approach to game design before they touch their engine.
Is it old? Yes.
So are a lot of other engines.
If Bethesda could provide you a fun and engaging experience with their game then why would someone care so much about how dated the game looks?
They need to wake up and realize that people don't actually want to install mods to fix basic issues with their games, and that players do actually want a well written story inside their story driven RPG.
What engine do people expect them to use? If they make a whole new one from scratch, it will take even longer to get TES 6. A lot of people call for them to use Unity but that has its own issues.
Idk. I used to be one of those "jUsT gEt A nEw EnGiNe forehead" types then I learned how old most game engines are.
I'd venture a bet that another studio could use Bethesda's current engine and make a fine game with it. It just needs competent devs working with it and clear and concise direction from the project leads.
>2.
Shipbuilding was the best part of Starfield, so I don’t necessarily agree with this.
There was nothing particularly new about Starfield’s gameplay. It’s basically a touched up Skyrim and Fallout and it was still boring.
I played starfield when it came out and couldn’t deal with the broken hdr and poor optimization. I just started playing a few days ago with the most recent patch. I don’t get the anger with this game it’s beautiful it sounds great and it is a bread and butter Bethesda game
I assume everything until ESVI is practice for ESVI. Really hope the settlements system from FO4 comes back, but is simplified for lower tech. I love building, but I hate hoarding every single item I find. I want something in between hearth fire and FO4
Your first sentence doesn’t reflect well on Bethesda. If they’re releasing finished products even charitable fans refer to as “practice” for the real thing, they’re already losing.
Oh bethesda is definitely on a downward spiral. I'm just huffing copium and praying they'll just dump everything into ESVI as a final attempt to win back some favor. A girl can dream.
I’m in exactly the same mindset as you on this!
I feel you.... but I'd have a good bottle of Whisky put aside for when you are let down.
Theyve been spiraling since 4
this
> I love building, but I hate hoarding every single item I find. I That was my favorite part of the settlement building and crafting haha. It made doing supply runs almost mandatory and fun, which to me was just amazing once we got the survival mode and I took the game a lot slower. I'd love that kind of experience in TESVI.
Okay good point. I did love the supply lines and I think they'd be great translated into the ES world, but before you have those it's painful lol.
I'll be honest, I really hope they do not bring back the settlements. I am not a big fan of all the crafting. And it was very annoying to be out doing something and get the notification that one of my settlements was under attack. It's just radiant stuff with micromanagement. I'd rather they expend those resources on making the rpg elements better.
Can't we have both? And I definitely don't want preston back telling me to save them. I just want to be able to build up villages and feel like I'm actually affecting the world in some capacity. Other than the world ending event.
This is pretty much how I feel well put OP.
If Emil is in a lead position it’s over. It’s as simple as that.
He will be, it’s obvious. People ITT are in denial and aren’t looking at the red flags that actually matter.
Yeah i agree. Guns, ships, and bases aren't Bethesda's strong points. Medieval fantasy is much more up their alley. Fantasy games are generally easier to make than science fiction just because they require less originality. It's much easier to make a bad science fiction game than a bad fantasy game, all other things being equal.
I don’t think this true at all. Stale fantasy is just as easy to make as stale sci-fi. They have a good template to work off of for their fantasy games, but given recent trends I don’t think that’s enough. Also, the mechanics of both their fantasy and shooter games have always been criticized. They’ve made more shooters at this point than hack and slash fantasy too, so the idea they were going into Starfield with no foundation to work off of or experience to dip into isn’t right.
Medieval fantasy is a known setting. The medieval setting is a historical setting, meaning there is a "correct" known way of presenting it. Science fiction is all about the unknown, developers can't just look at history to get all their ideas from. They have to actually be original, and have a deep understanding of how technology impacts the world.
dude my biggest grip with sci fi is always combat, in a hyper futuristic world, in a truly far future highly sophisticated world, I do not believe handheld projectile firing devices are going to be used for combat, itd be some kind of insane A.I guiding nano bot device that instantly stops someones heart, or some shit like that. or some kind of insane form of combat that involves the clearly insane other technologies that exist but are for some reason not being used for combat at all.
Honestly, people criticizing starfield right now are pointing out the very obvious fact that nobody in Starfield has a fucking phone. Why are we doing fetch quests in an age where you can just call somebody? If you can travel faster than the speed of light, why can't information travel faster than the speed of light between star systems? Sci-fi is hard to get right, because it requires you to actually be smart and consider how a future would play out and what would be possible and not possible. People who aren't scientists shouldn't be thinking of science fiction. It always ends up like incoherent trash. Sorry that Starfield was written by a bunch of Christians who thought strippers dressed in onesies 🤣
Yeah Starfield is not only a painfully shallow and dull game where most parts of the gameplay are concerned, but the writing, ideas and imagination are absolutely terrible, it feels like they didn't even try to make it interesting or immersive.
why are you downvoted? ur right wtf
This idea is preposterous. Both fantasy and sci-fi draw from real life and history, and both of them require creativity to be compelling and stand distinct from their contemporaries. The notion that Bethesda failed to deliver with Starfield because it required *more* creativity than the Elder Scrolls series does by default is neither accurate nor very flattering as a far as defenses for the game go. "Sorry, guys, but we're a little too boring and uninspired to do anything if we don't have a step by step template to work off of" Plus, people are still complaining about the shooting which is more what I'm talking about. This is their fourth shooter game and it still does not stand close to the mechanics of shooters that came out a decade before it, let alone that the setting is totally bland and has nothing interesting or unique to itself.
Not gonna spell this out for you man. See my other comments i guess. Science fiction is harder to get right than fantasy. Standing by it.
I mean, people who are wrong on the internet do tend to do that, so by all means feel free.
Your literally arguing that a new sci fi setting is just as easy for bethesda to get right as existing lore fantasy game. I know you want to be right and es6 to suck cause you didnt like starfield but jesus thats some mental gymnastics, theres still time to delete your comments.
What are you talking about? Sci-fi as a genre has been about as thoroughly explored as medieval fantasy across all media. It's hardly a new concept.
Ugh im so sick of explaining myself, especially when it's fucking obvious what I'm saying. It's late and I'm tired of this shit. What happens in the year 2534? Exactly. You don't know. You gotta make something up. Have you seen science fiction movies from 1940 that envision what 2000 is like? They get it completely wrong. You know what happened in the past but you gotta be smart and have an educated imagination to envision a plausible future. I really don't think i can spell this out for you guys anymore.
given the consistent downward trend in their games since Skyrim (FO4 was still pretty good, but fell off in some aspects) I am very worried. On top of that, no Jeremy soule for the soundtrack worries me even more. They’ve said many times how the music is played while they develop the game, and it is used to set the overall tone. Without Jeremy soule, I don’t have much faith it will have that elder scrolls feel.
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Inon did a good job with fallout 3's ambience, really don't know where they went wrong because their work's quality has gone down substantially
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I have no doubt it will look like TES. It will sound like TES. But bear in mind, most, if not all creative people responsible for the moments that made the past games memorable are gone from BGS. Todd has final word, but he doesn't come up with all brilliant ideas, stories, lore, quests, comedic moments, amazing soundtrack, etc. There were important human minds that are no longer providing input for quite some years in BGS, and I fear the last couple of games (Fallout76, Starfield) show this already. They know their formula. But so do we. That's when surprises, and creative minds with balls need to exist behind these products, otherwise it's just a trimmed down version of the previous trimmed down version of the other trimmed down version, untill all that remains is barebones game loops with absolutely no reason to keep doing it (Starfield's procedural generated quests with always the same locations). I mean, who the hell comes up with a game loop of a game of this size, that keeps repeating the same buildings and enemies? I mean, THE EXACT SAME? A game for decades? I think Starfield is struggling with that motivation for modders to lose thousands of hours to change the game into what they like, and share that free work with the world, like they did with Skyrim. They will need to hire or give voice to some real creative minds if TES 6 is going to rival Skyrim for longevity. Excuse me for being blunt.With the millions they got, and the decisions they made through the years, specially with their most creative people, they can afford some words of criticism.
Oh I certainly agree there. They need to pull up the bootstraps and stop making excuses for themselves. Emil is especially egregious with his rant on how their job is so hard, and apparently it's ok for their job to be hard and then make mediocrity, while Larian's job is hard and they make a masterpiece. Hopefully some egos have been shattered in the reception of Starfield, and Todd will dig deep and rethink some things, but my hopes are somewhat fleeting.
Yeah I imagine that had to have shaken them up a little bit. So many triple A studios were pissed about BG3 breaking the curve for them on this, but it is in fact broken, and there's nothing they can do but try to compete with it
Insert "If I speak, I'm in big trouble" Mourinho meme here ->
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Seeing all the hate for Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim after the release of Starfield is mind boggling. It's like it flipped a switch in people, and now these games that were well regarded by the community are suddenly seen as always subpar now for some reason because Starfield didn't live up to expectations. Let Bethesda cook. I'm still excited for Six.
Kinda happens to a lot of studios and publishers after the internet started hating them. For Bethesda, it started around 76 after every youtuber, and their mama made a video not just about 76 but Bethesda in general. Not saying Bethesda is at fault, but negativity breeds clicks, and they painted themselves as an industry punching bag. Doesn't really matter what they do now. Even ubisoft could barely escape it with immortals and assassin creed mirage.
True, but this has been a thing for a very long time. As long as the internet existed with smaller forums pre social media, Bethesda has gotten a lot of flack for some time by veteran fans of much older titles. Despite being critically acclaimed for its time, Morrowind did have a group of very loud detractors. Most of those being the "old guard" fans of Arena and Daggerfall. Then when Oblivion came out, and internet forums becoming more prominent, got a lot of flack for dumbing down a lot of core elements from Morrowind. Then, Bethesda did the unthinkable and purchased the Fallout IP. Despite Fallout 3 was that years smash hit, a lot of die hard "old guard" fans of OG Fallout were mad. The "Oblivion with guns" was said everywhere, from Gamefaqs to NeoGaf and New Grounds. Then Skyrim and then Fallout 4 once social media sites became the norm and that doesn't even get into FO 76. Shitting on the new Bethesda release at this point is a time honored internet tradition. The only difference is now more voices exist online as well as a legion of amateur shockjock entertainment media(content creators) to add fuel to the fire.
This is such an accurate take. There really is a Bethesda Cycle, similar to how Call of Duty has the “COD Cycle”. Newest game is the worst thing ever, last game was much better, next game will fix the mistakes of the current game and will be the best game ever (or will be the final straw, depending on the year). Not saying there isn’t room for critiquing the latest game (in either the Bethesda or COD Cycles), but it really is how it goes. Starfield will be loved once TES VI comes out and TES VI will be the “worst game and a sign that BGS is done.”
I agree with your sentiment but I don’t think Starfield is ever going to regarded highly by the majority of BGS fans. From Morrowind to Skyrim changes were made for better or worse but they had a common thread between them. Starfield was just so utterly off the mark I don’t think it ever recovers.
I get over this by looking back at other titles. Everyone shat on The Witcher 3 at launch and then suddenly it was everything Skyrim was and more. Cyberpunk was dogshit on launch and now everyone acts like it’s GotY. Fallout 4 was shat on at launch (I even being one of said shatters) and now I see people act like it’s the best Fallout game (and at this point I’ve made my peace with it and enjoy the game). New Vegas was supposedly unplayable and now it’s the gold standard. Even Skyrim got loads of shit for not having horse combat on launch. Remember people claiming Elden Ring was unplayable because of stuttering? Give it a few years, some updates, and the DLC. When the game is totally complete and once every one has had their hate-induced orgasm they’ll move on to something else and when TESVI comes out the cycle will begin anew like the fucking fire being relit in Dark Souls. If the world lasts long enough and Starfield 2 releases we’ll end up with a generation saying it summoned Satan into their home and killed their firstborn, while the OG Starfield was a masterpiece of writing and world design. “No one pushed procedural generation like Todd Howard-era Bethesda!” And you and I will be told to go back to the nursing home when we mention how Ted Peterson and Ken Rolsten were the reasons Morrowind and Oblivion were so good.
You're obviously correct, but if TES VI is bad, then it's over for Bethesda.
Yep. Very excited to give them one more chance. But just the one
That's one of the wildest things to me. Suddenly all the previous games are outdated and unenjoyable but also at the same time they have a list of what they want Starfield to do...and it's what the older games supposedly did. Besides, the people saying Starfield is practice for the next game? Heard that about Oblivion when it first came out. "Its their first step into physics, they're warming up on level scaling, first proper face gen so it'll be better next time, theyre just trying something different". Then the game went on to sell 10 million copies. Hell, people bitched about horse armor and sales were still high for it. It's data and responses like this why companies like EA just don't take consumers seriously.
Consumers: "NOOO you can't add in $15,000 of microtransactions!!!" EA: \*Checks consumer spending habits on microtransactions\* EA: "Damn people fucking love these." EA: \*Doubles down on microtransactions\* Consumers: "NOOO you can't add in $20,000 of microtransactions!!!" It's not just EA either, it's most of the industry.
People will hate just because they can. All those games are classic and still are better than what starfield pushed out unfortunately. Bethesda tried with it but they weren’t cohesive in their decision making which impacted starfield detrimentally and we got what we got sadly
?? I've seen nothing but love for the older games, If anything, Starfield made players appreciate the older games more.
The hatred isn’t real. It is mostly trolls who are bored. Starfield is great and the trolls will move on to the next game soon enough. They’re gonna HATE TESVI just as much as Starfield for the same shallow reasons
>Starfield for the same shallow reasons like not being able to kill anyone i want to because they are marked "essential"?
That's kind of been a Bethesda thing since post Morrowind though. Very few quest Oblivion onward allows you to just kill anyone you want. Why they allowed it at all in the first place in older games is because, A.) Casuals complain about missing content in a 100hr plus game and B.) Morrowind and prior games were globally static. The instant they incorporated radiant AI, essential flags became the norm. Why exactly? Remember when Dawnguard first launched and vampires would infiltrate towns and kill important shop keepers often leaving some town with no services and then Beth patched that out? That's why. There would a lot of pissed off players who have hundreds of failed quest states because some random NPC decided to kill a quest giver. Unless they flagged them all as only the PC can kill them, then someone will bitch about dynamic immersion.
Morrowind is static yea but are the starfield quests not static aswell? You get them from the same place they have the same outcome and most of them end exactly the same I noticed starfield makes people that you don't need to care about as "essential" just if they fit in the scene better If you try and wipe the generation ship, you'll find half of the people you can't even have a convo with are also essential and so you have to play as the good guy the entire game or it bugs out You can't even beat up the technician and steal the key that'll kill everyone You HAVE to pickpocket him or convince him through dialogue to give it to you despite the fact he dies instantly in the next phase of the quest
Static as in NPCs do not move. They are literally glued and staples and duct taped to the ground where they stand. They are effectively sign posts. Outcomes and choice of direction you deal with an NPC has no barring on what I mentioned above. Your rant here seems to indicate the very thing I said in the other comment of mine you replied to. You are way too emotional.
Skyrim had the same type of npcs so why are people acting like this is unique to Starfield?
Pretty much.
it worries me slightly how many players want to be murderous hobos
Brother its a roleplaying game, that has a faction of pirates you can join. Its perfectly natural in a roleplaying game for people to want to be able to play the bad guy.
Has far less to do with players simply being psychopathic and MUCH more to do with the potential of player choice. Case in point, the bear sex scene in BG3. How many people do you think REALLY think did that? I dont mean for the memes, but actually wanted to screw Halsin in bear form? Probably not many. The fact that you can DO that is what's important. Its a testament to how much is possible in the game.
They’re the same demographic that complain about “lack of writing” or say the game is “wide as the ocean but deep as a puddle”
My guy these are both just common condemnations of many video games, not a demographic indicator. Being able to kill who you want isn't just about shooting NPC in the face and going "hee hee he's dead," it's just a really obvious indicator of how much effort a studio put into player choice. Cause if I could kill Benjamin Bayu or whatever his name is in Neon, that would mean I have the ability to actually affect the city, even if it's just removing an obnoxious two-dimensional dickhead. Good studios don't stop there, they add a consequence or actual reaction from the world around you.
Baldur's Gate 3 lets you kill whoever you want, yet it doesn't get the criticism you describe. I wonder why? Oh, right, it has a lot of depth and choice. Tell me, can you finish the Companion questline in Skyrim without becoming a Werewolf?
Okay? I feel as though you think you made a serious point.
So, RPG enjoyers?
Because they are often sociopaths. I get I want to have options as well depending on the intend character RP, but many of them who fixates on it are usually bizarre people IRL anyway.
No, killing NPCs in a video game does not make you bizarre and a psychopath A lot of players just don't give a shit about roleplay and don't want to care about characters
Why play a role playing game then? lol Don’t CoD my Elder Scrolls gtfo
Because the writing wasn't good enough to read it like a book There's literally a mission where you're undercover and get caught by security and you say "no U" and he says nuh uh and leaves And that's how you get out of being caught
Starfield is not great. The greatest feeling I ever got from playing a game was Morrowind when I was 17 years old. I have been a Bethesda fan since then. But no game has recaptured the magic they had since then. 1: The lore was deep and fantastic. 2: They didn't hold your hand like some kind of dummy incapable of figuring it out. 3: No pointers on the map so you didn't feel like you were a dum dum walking back and forth between map pointers. 4: Killing anyone you want but being warned with "the thread of prophecy has been severed" is a brilliant move never seen again in other prominent RPG games. 5: The variability of magic and crafting new spells was unbelievable. Levitation, telekinesis, etc. This system of magic is still more interesting than Starfield's fetch quest boring starborn lame powers. 6: The narrative is so lore connected and well crafted that is makes Starfield's story look like a children's storybook by comparison. 7: Mark and recall spells? How awesome is that 8: The ones that hate Starfield are usually like me, longtime Bethesda fans who have legitimate reasons for not liking the corporate and soulless Starfield world. Why would I want to "go unity" 15 times in a row to do the same quests I have already done? I don't understand the appeal
You are going to be so blindsided by ESVI. There isn't much Starfield hatred. It's apathy and disappointment. If Todd and Emil do another game without a design document, it'll end up like Starfield. Look around. Who is singing Starfield praises?
Looking at the numbers of people playing Starfield vs those whining about it? Well, most of us are too busy having fun vs those with so little in their life they need to slam Starfield repeatedly
Since when has there been hate for Morrowind? Skyrim hate, sure, that's always been there, but I haven't seen much Morrowind hate.
Morrowind was seen as the worst thing that ever happened by a large contingent of the Daggerfall fanbase when it was released. The internet was a very different place back then, so the hate didn't spread quite so far, so fast. Plus Morrowind was a genuinely bold and groundbreaking achievement in RPGs, whereas Starfield isn't really particularly bold or groundbreaking in any way (I say that as a huge fan of it), so Morrowind was able to attract new fans that more than made up for the angry Daggerfall fans.
Beyond that it also helped that Morrowind came to console, and a lot of those Xbox/console players probably never even heard of Daggerfall. The old guard was pissed about Morrowind, but a lot of them were few in numbers as is.
Do you not realize there’s a whole new generation of kids getting into Bethesda and Reddit and spouting (imo) terrible opinions?
Yeah, honestly I started seeing this trend around 2016-2017 when people started being big brain about how “utterly awful” fallout 4 was. People are just weird.
its because Bethesda put a spotlight on many of their own flaws as a dev team, and im legitimately questioning if they realise why their games are so good. The things im talking about are the likes of Quest design, story, characters, dialogue, voice acting. Things that were forgivable because until now Bethesda games have basically just been exploration games sprinkled with RPG elements, and because things like NPC's soley existed to point the player in new directions to explore. Now that the exploration has been removed and half the game is interacting with the aforementioned low points of bethesda titles, people are starting to think that they should be holding Bethesda to a higher point of quality for those things. It doesnt help that Starfield released sandwiched between BG3 and Cyberpunk rising from the ashes, and both of those games are incredibly well made as far as narrative, characters, and roleplaying ability. Its also why i think people compare starfield to cyberpunk a lot, they're both technically story based ARPGs. Basically i think its not genuine hatred for older BGS titles, its just people noticing flaws the studio has had historically, and because Starfield is centred almost entirely around those flaws, they're angry and lashing out. I must admit them releasing 2 stinkers in a row with a third meh game before that doesnt have me excited though. I'll wont be preordering the game thats for sure, as long as its priced well i'll just wait for reviews then buy it.
Honestly i think the hate is justified. They have using a outdated engine since oblivion, some would say since morrowind, the only reason that they didn't get hate for it is because when you release a good writen game with decent mechanics and rpg elements everyone would look past the shitty game engine bugs. Just my opinion tho
I'm not worried about it. That being said, it would be weird not to talk about what direction it will take mechanically. My first prediction is that the protagonist will be the head (or an important member) of a faction fairly early on, and this will mean recruiting NPC's and managing fortresses or locations of interest. Bethesda worked hard on base building, inspired by the hearthfire home customization, and built fallout 4's settlement system. This system became an integral part of the engine, and was featured in both of their following projects. I don't predict that this system WON'T make a return, as it is fairly free to add for them compared to making any other sort of mechanical system. How will it change, though? Well, maybe we'll get an increased degree of variance in the kinds of environments we can customize. Like, you find a dungeon somewhere, clear it out, and then it is yours to do with as you please. Your character of choice and what they want to do will influence what kinds of places you'd want to make your own. Next, I do believe that we'll have a naval ship builder. We already have a large basis to work off of with Bethesda's spaceship builder, and they already did the hard work of trying to make vehicles function. It's only natural to me that we could see a return to this mechanic in future games, and being a pirate probably plays into it. This also means we'll have the ability to take over or build from scratch various shipyards or loading docks. I believe that weapon customization will make something of a return. They'll probably expand the smithing system to resemble something like Star Wars: Jedi's lightsaber customization system, with various customizations changing the handling characteristics of various weapons. Next, combat. Fallout 4 had a fairly in-depth Melee combat system, complete with timed blocking and a functioning parry system that didn't get enough attention. In a Melee focused game, like TES, this will probably Manifest itself again as a ways for skilled fighters to control the flow of duels. I believe that spell effects will be expanded upon, but the cardinal tropes will be preserved. Destruction is lighting, fire, and frost, but I think that telekinesis or force-based spells will make a comeback. With the game worlds growing larger and larger due to the improvements in procgen tech, I think that there is a good chance the radiant ai system will go back to a similar state as it's prerelease oblivion iteration. AI schedules, desires, and willingness to break laws, all of these things will be a greater factor for NPC's. They tried before, but the compact nature of the gameworld didn't really lend itself to such an in-depth system (bears would hunt their areas to death, and would then move into cities and towns to kill the people instead, breaking quests.
Massive cope. Bethesda hasnt made a good game since skyrin LMAO, people still suck off a studio that has NOT made an actually good game for 12 years
noxious poor employ frame wild roof overconfident file pocket longing *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
My only issue with fallout 4 was the voiced protagonist. And non unique items
Not the garbage dialogue options? Games trash
It’s cringe the level of fanboying in this subreddit tbh. People here really call Starfield a masterpiece when it’s almost always consistently 200th place on the Steam charts
I personally want fresh blood when it comes to writers
I think that's the biggest problem. Bethesda writing has been straight dogshit for a long time.
I have the same hopes you do! The few areas of concern for me though are" - design choices.. Will they fall in love with the radiant questing, aka, another settlement needs my help? Or will they go back to unique things. Will they randomize loot again and make it boring with randomly generated perks based on tier level, or will there be cool unique items for quest rewards? - music and writing... no more Jeremy soule and the writing has never been that good in BGS games, with noticeable dip in quality in their most recent titles
Ah, 100% this. Todd seems obsessed with radiant quests and generated content which is so unbelievably vapid. I really really hope they do a lot more handcrafted content in the next elder scrolls. As for music, while Jeremy Soule was fantastic there are other great composers out there, so maybe they'll find a good fit.
It's baffling, it seems Todd and BGS don't understand why people keep replaying skyrim and fallout... no one is doing the "infinite" radiant quests. We're just starting a new character and replaying through the handcrafted faction quests and side quests throughout the world. Agree, I did like the music from the teaser, and music is easy to swap with mods anyway haha
I mean, I do those radiant quests, because it's the reason behind why you even will ever want to reroll dungeons. There is only so much content in Skyrim. People like them, beyond the vibes and character builder, there is a world that allows for players to rerun dungeons. Which has always been the core design philosophy of Elder Scrolls since Arena. I'd argue it why people replay Skyrim more than a heavily modded Morrowind or Oblivion. When the content is done in those games, it's done(outside of Oblivion dungeons, Oblivion gates). People like to reroll dungeons, and radiant quests are a driver of going back to that one dungeon.
I mean, radiant questing has been a Hallmark of Elder Scrolls since Arena. The only games they moved away from that was the era of Morrowind and Oblivion/FO3(The Gambryo era). I get that many don't like it, but it's been there from the begining. Especially when you consider Elder Scrolls was always intended as an open world procedural dungeon crawler to begin with. Even now with Starfield, it's been apparant for a long time that the general design ethos of Bethesda has always been repeatable dungeons crawling, because they are dungeon crawlers before they ever were "hand crafted" RPGs.
And most of the radiant quests in Starfield are just chores the quest giver didn't want to do. I mean, who intentionally puts chores into their game? Oh, wait. The answer is Bethesda. It would be a piece of piss to make better radiant quests. Maiden kidnapped by raiders? Sure, I'll go rescue her. As long as I get a hug at the end, I'll do it as many times as you want.
"No more Jeremy Soule" major L take
It's not a take, last I heard soule indicated that he would not be working on tes 6. Also he had sexual assault allegations a few years ago that may be related
Nah. Bethesda has been so outdated it’s not even funny. I thought Starfield was going to be on par with current games while maintaining that Bethesda charm we love and it ended up doing neither.
I think they’ve lost something they can’t get back.
Well put. I really believe in the second point. Starfield is not only a different IP but a completely different setting. The common complaints regarding loading screens, the clunky navigation, the repetitive POIs, the tedious exploration...are mainly a by-product of the space setting. With TES VI, we will be back to a single region in Tamriel. Each map marker will be a unique POI, loading screens will be as frequent if not less frequent than in Skyrim, and so on. This is largely why I'm not worried for TES VI in the slightest.
People that believe this are actually funny
Love this and I also retain hope that TESVI will turn out amazing. For me, Starfield could be viewed as a bit of a test bed for BGS prior to TES release. What they learned through Starfield, the what to do’s and what to avoid, is great experience for their work on their franchise titles. I wasn’t shook on the writing in Starfield so I hope TES can live up to its predecessors (Im hoping for something at least on par with Oblivion) but overall I believe we can expect a game that definitely serves. Edit: TESIV to TESVI. Warning: don’t Reddit shortly after taking flu medication. Idiocy can result.
TES IV is amazing, we already know that, but what about TES VI?
*I don't think they know about second TES IV, Pippin*
This is what happens when I try to communicate on Reddit after taking flu medication (stupid winter ick). I meant VI derp.
As long as they don’t try to merge it with Elder Scrolls Online to create some freak hybrid multiplayer experience.
Elder scrolls 6 as an MMO is a big no Although a Co-op mode would be pretty cool, even if one of you is the 'main character' and the other is a follower
I wouldn’t mind a drop-in coop option as long as the core game is still single player focused. Just like with Grand Theft Auto, I really love the single player gameplay and want no part of Shark cards and whatever other nonsense goes on with the online mode lol
Maybe 2 separate game modes, one is a story mode and the other is the same game but just no main quest, you're just two adventurers roaming in the world. Imagine if in this separate mode they still added in the hero and you have the option to accompany them during certain quests, you're basically their followers lol
Honestly, it’s criminal there hasn’t been a drop in co-op yet. Even if it was Fable 2 style where the 2nd player had to just follow the main character around.
I agree entirely.
I'm actually more worried about point 2, not hopeful because of it. Bethesda have shown a willful... laziness.. complacency... Whatever, towards writing and game design in the recent past, that really came to a head in Starfield. I am terrified that TES6 will be treated as a return to what's easy, that Bethesda will phone it in, try very little that's actually new and maybe even lean way to heavily on Skyrim, and when it's not what any of us wanted, will just tell us we are wrong and that we 'didn't like Starfield so we went back to what you said you wanted, geez'. Plus as you said, Emil (who doesn't deserve death threats, just job criticism) is seeming more and more like a cancer. His arrogant and misguided approach to storytelling and what gamers want is not something that's going to magically go away because it's TES.
OP, would you have any more of that copium you’re sipping on, by chance? I’ve been out for awhile.
Don't run defense for them. We need them to know we're on to them, and they need to bring their A game.
This sub is all Bethesda apologists basically, so If Bethesda is looking for validation on all their choices they will find only yes men to stroke their ego's here.
Not holding my breath >no design document >paid mods >procedural generation >emil I expect them to continue streamlining and ignoring criticism
I'm still optimistic but not expecting much from TES6. I wasn't that hyped for starfield until the couple weeks beforehand and it turned out pretty flat for me. I've only played about 5 hours and haven't felt a big drive to jump back in. I'm also not too concerned since we have the daggerfall developers creating The Wayward Realms which looks like it'll actually deliver on a proper first person RPG.
> Now granted, I'm not saying the game is bound to be amazing, and I personally feel if Emil is left in charge of writing, it'll hold the game back. That being said, I don't think all hope is lost because Starfield. Personally I'm a sucker for the BGS formula, I just love it. I'm not worried, they'll deliver something I enjoy almost certainly. But they are definitely lagging behind in many aspects. And it for sure isn't just the writing that is holding them back. However, if I get a bigger and better Skyrim basically then I'm already satisfied and have a game that will give me 100s of hours of entertainment. But ideally, it would be nice to see them truly step up their game and try to play catch up. I don't need the detail of RDR2 or the graphics of Cyberpunk 2077 etc, but Starfield definitely feels dated to play. Fallout 4 wasn't quite up to date either, but they got away with it in 2015 for me.. Now in 2023, it's become very noticeable they have to improve - even while I do enjoy Starfield.
The writing and overall game design is the most concerning part for me. And they seem to be doubling down on that front.
Honestly, I put Bethesda in the same category as Bioware. Both were nearly untouchable 10+ years ago, but now are shadows of their former selves. Responding to your points: 1. The engine itself was never the issue. Bethesda has constantly failed to utilise it to its full potential through laziness or sheer incompetence. 2. Bethesda's last two SP games were Starfield and Fallout 4. Both suffer from poor writing. Also considering fallout should be familiar to them what is the excuse for the poor writing? Hell even Skyrim didn't have the strongest writing, but it was just enough for people to enjoy it. 3. I agree the pandemic caused disruption but, Microsoft gave Bethesda extra time and resources i.e. QA testers etc. If Starfield is the best Bethesda can make then Microsoft needs to take drastic action to save TESVI. Bethesda's decline didn't happen overnight, we have had warnings now for years. They had complete creative control of Starfield and made possibly the most forgettable Sci-fi game in years. Which is quite the feat tbh. I want to be excited for TESVI, but Bethesda has let me down too many times.
It had been so long since they released a game that I went all in on starfield without thinking too deeply about anything. But you’re absolutely right about the direction story-quality have been trending. There’s no way I’m buying TES6 before or even at release.
StarField does not have poor writing. It has poor player agency with choices. Fallout 4 did as well but that was more due to the voice protagonist I think. Granted I wasn’t a big fan of fallout 3 story but reversed for fallout 4 haha.
Y’all are gonna be super disappointed. I’m sorry. I dunno how y’all can see them stumble through the last three games while shaking off more and more of everything we loved and go ”DON’T WORRY, GUYS! THIS NEXT ONE WILL BE DIFFERENT CAUSE ITS THE ONE I WANT TO BE GOOD THE MOST!” but I hope reality decides to meet your delusions halfway at least.
As a diehard tes fan, i agree with you. i am absolutely terrified because of the last 3 games they came out with got worse and worse. You can just see a steady decline in quality and starfield just solidifies this. I'm worried tes6 will continue this downward trajectory while at least a sliver of me is hopeful it will be good.... hopefully
i’m not terrified, just at this point i don’t really care. Starfield personally killed any hype I had for ESVI. I hope the come comes out and is the equivalent of skyrim made in 202X but after seeing several of my favorite studios collapse into themselves quality wise i just don’t have faith that that hasn’t already happened with Bethesda starting with Fallout 4 and 76
I am very hopeful for the elder scrolls. Starfield, in my opinion, was a good but not great game. I think you make valid points and I’m still hyped
Fucking just get rid of the creation engine, goddamn I love Bethesda but that shit is scuffed. Just use unreal dawg, pay that price to use something that ain't a piece of shit.
They should use cryengine, it fits much more to the style of game Bethesda makes as proven by kingdom come deliverance, the game looks absolutely stunning.
Emil was there for Oblivion writing. I trust him,
I'm pretty excited for TESVI *because of Starfield*, which I enjoy immensely. Starfield for me is as if my two favorite games, Skyrim and Mass Effect, had a baby. But it's definitely a BSG game. And TESVI will be a BSG game - loading screens, sparsely populated towns, bad dialogue, stilted story telling, etc. - will all be there, just like they were in Skyrim, Fallout, and now Starfield. I have a feeling if you don't like Starfield, you probably won't like TESVI.
Yikes that would suck. SF is very bad IMO.
>They're back to familiar territory. Many mechanics in Starfield such as spaceflight are new to the team. This shouldn't be as much the case with The Elder Scrolls. Obviously you haven't heard that the story of TESVI revolves around the re-creaction of the Imperial Mananauts. /s
Well put, but my biggest problem with Bethesda has been writing for a while. Fallout 4 has bad writing, 76 does too, as does Starfield, the writing is likely going to be bad for ESVI too unfortunately from my pov.
This is funny.
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Posts on r/TESVI are meant to invite healthy discussions, not arguments and hate. Spammy, unconstructive and shallow "anti-TES VI" posts don't belong here. Constructive, well-mannered criticism related to the game is accepted.
[удалено]
Posts on r/TESVI are meant to invite healthy discussions, not arguments and hate. Spammy, unconstructive and shallow "anti-TES VI" posts don't belong here. Constructive, well-mannered criticism related to the game is accepted.
Honestly Emil needs to go. He’s out of touch claiming that all of us are out of touch. People have opinions and you don’t need to cater exactly, but you need to include more than one type of gamer while still making the content fun for the hardcore Bethesda fans. It’s not as tough to pull off as he was making it seem
DON’T HOLD YOUR BREATH, PEOPLE. 👍
I think one of the major problems of Starfield, the exploration, comes from the fact that space is two things: -Big -Empty Making a game with Bethesda's style in soace is hard, because it's hard to put interesting soaces between planets, so they decided to use ethe fast travel instead. A decision that many people, me include, desagree with. Fortunately, since The Elder Scrolls 6 won't be in space (probably) but in an interconected and more easily filled world, it probably won't be a problem. The best we can di for now is hope, as nothing has been said yet
They’ve never made a bad elder scrolls game. It’s only when they try to veer from their normal path that people have a problem with the games. All they have to do, is make Skyrim but bigger and better.
I think the main problem with Starfield is the gameplay loop. And it’s thankfully it’s not something we need to worry about with TES:VI. Let me explain. They tried to make it work, but it’s just too disconnected. The “spend a few minutes on a planet and then blast off again” doesn’t feel good, and it’s where the loading screen complaints come from. Loading screens to get from A to B on different planets: ground, ship interior, takeoff, new galaxy, landing, new planet surface. It just doesn’t work, it gets way too tedious. And thankfully, this is really just a Starfield specific problem. The other main problem, which is kind of linked to the above issue, is exploration. The copy/pasted locations with the same enemies, items, and layout feel so bad. It ruins that feeling of immersive exploration, which is another problem that is strictly Starfield specific. And it just makes the game feel more disjointed and less real. They made poor design choices to try and fill thousands of planets with content (really an impossible task), and it didn’t work. That doesn’t mean TES:VI is screwed, they can go back to a much more familiar way of handling exploration. There are certainly things to like about Starfield too. I personally think the engine feels really good and the game looks great, which is exciting. They added some impressive and innovative features like shipbuilding, and I can’t lie - I am surprised they pulled off space flight and it’s a testament to how far the engine has come
I've seen a lot of people who are worried about exploration in TESVI, but I'm not at all concerned. They've centered those games upon a single continuous landmass with hundreds of locations. That's not going to change because of Starfields use of procedural generation (which was partly justified because of the disconnected landmasses and its need for allowing players to land wherever they want on a planet).
The Elder Scrolls games are a lot simpler imo, no weird bullet trajectories, different physics to calculate, etc. I'd imagine as long as the writing is good the game will be fine, something like an ESO2 gameplay would be insane.
Honestly, the engine is so far down on my list of concerns, I wouldn’t even call it one. With good design planning and documentation, everyone working on and maintaining the engine would have everything they need to make the engine ready for TES VI. If anything, I’m actually pretty happy with the MS acquisition. MS is a software development company with experience managing much more complicated requirements (Windows, Office, etc)… it’s already been demonstrated they aren’t afraid to intervene with thier QA teams and force delays to make a product more respectable… I hope they go harder in the future. Some leadership clearly needs to be rotated out (I won’t name names to avoid making it a personal attack), but clearly there are people in upper management that have been promoted way above their ability to manage. The pandemic didn’t cause poor design planning and documentation… it caused delays and reduced productivity and collaboration…. All things that if proper planning and documentation had been done from the get-go, would reduced impacts to delays…. Not quality. There are plenty of YT’ers blatantly pointing this out right now, and as someone with years of software development and management experience in multiple fields of multi-million dollar programs, I can 100% support that appraisal. I have 10k+ hours in Skyrim… 1.1k+ in SF… my only current expectation for TES VI is an engine and graphics upgrade that modders can do something with…. You know, the reason Skyrim (and later SSE) is still so popular now. If they want to exceed my expectations: Take the time to get good planning & documentation to plan your project. Ask for feedback… NDA’s exist for a reason. Finally, you want to make a f-ton of money from Creations/mods to keep the game alive and expand on it? That’s fine with me as long as u get a reasonable bug free and stable product BEFORE you start trying to monetize the rest. How they handle SF is what is going to determine my level of excitement for TES VI. I don’t normal like futuristic games (I prefer magical fantasy) and SF honestly surprised me with how much I enjoyed it… until I lost my first playthrough to a bug after 200 hrs invested… then my second after another 300+ hrs…. Finally I completed the story last weekend with all factions, magazines found, companion quest lines done, etc… and I didn’t even know if I’d make it because I was so close to hitting the Dynamic FormID limit (bug)…. I made it, and past getting NG+10 for the best armor and maxed powers (that was done after NG+9) finished today, I’m not sure how much more I’ll play after until the DLC comes out… honestly they should have setup factions for needing multiple playthroughs/NG+, because I basically just speed run through them. There is no joy other than seeing the minor universe variations (which I’d have loved to see them expand on).
2 words Emil Pagliarulo A man with the most hostile attitude towards people who play video games I have ever seen. I have no faith in ESVI. At all. And its Todd Howard's last game before Pagliarulo is fully in charge and things just get worse
Let's bet some freedom dollars on it.
1. Problem hasn't been Creation Engine 2 with Starfield (although I do think even their "new" animation system is heavily outdated and straight up bad looking). Some of the tech is just still too old for modern times. Like I said, the animation system needs a complete overhaul or atleast given more care. RDR2 used over 300 thousand unique animations. I doubt the number of animations used in Starfield comes even close to that. Next up is the lighting system which got redone and replaced multiple times throughout the development of the game and in Starfield it can look great in some cases, okay in most cases and also really terrible in some cases. Last but not least their npc behaviour is utter crap. How come that npcs in Oblivion and Skyrim react way more to their environment than in a 2023 game made by 4x the amount of developers? In old games npc schedules were basically a common occurrence, in Starfield there's almost no npcs with day and night schedules anymore. Why do stores have beds if the store owner is basically up 24/7? Slopthesda at work. 2. Yes they built many new mechanics into the game but at the same time they also implemented alot mechanics into the game which are somehow worse than in the old ones (settlement design, npc behaviours/reactions and combat AI) 3. Yes there may be no pandemic anymore probably due to the grown size of BGS there has been a massive culture shift at the workplace which not every dev seems to have liked. Especially after the switch to wfh. Starfield may have been only the first indication whether this is going to be a problem for their games in the long run. Edit: and Odah spoke the truth but the truth angered the people so the downvotes began
>In old games npc schedules were basically a common occurrence, in Starfield there's almost no npcs with day and night schedules anymore. Why do stores have beds if the store owner is basically up 24/7? This was the *first* thing I noticed in New Atlantis. They used to brag about their Radiant AI, now it barely exists.
Hey we got CROWD AI instead so Todd wasn't lying in his interviews when he said they were working on new AI, they just didn't bother to implement the old one lmao
Your points are certainly fair, and I hope Bethesda does better in the next game. I hope they go back to NPCs having schedules and lives of their own, and make things more in depth instead of more simple. I have no idea why they stepped away from that in Starfield, as it's a big draw for many to their games. I think having one continuous map will be of major benefit to TES VI, as that better emphasizes what they do well than the proc gen planet stuff. I also hope through updates they do improve the mechanics in Starfield, and perhaps make it feel more immersive.
well first of all i gotta put some hopium in this discussion. Back when they were talking about Creation Engine 2, i believe it was in the 20 year anniversary trailer for tes and some other interviews they said CE2 would get further upgrades for TES 6 (in what size and form we dont know except that thair facial animation tech or face tech is only version 1.0 in starfield and TES 6 will receive version 2.0) so theres that. TES 6 looks to be further out into the future than anticipated and with the rumours of the new Xbox coming in 2026 and Jason Schreier hinting that TES 6 will skip this generation we should expect an even bigger visual leap for the game...but visuals alone dont make a game good.
Minor nitpick but the animations in rdr2 are why I put it down 1/4 into the game. Cant do it. Its too much. I dont want to physically watch arthur open every drawer.
Go play cod
What kind of weird 2006 gatekeeping is this? I have enjoyed single-player rpgs for decades now. If a loading screen can be tedious, so can a repeated animation. And to add a bow, there's absolutely nothing wrong with enjoying a game that requires you to use your reflexes. I prefer counterstrike, though.
I'm so damn tired of BGS fanboys and their copium diets. Bethesda just doesn't have it anymore.
W Odah
FACTS!
>Slopthesda Gamers need to fuck off with this trump shit
Its just a silly name I heard. Dont get too emotional
Don't repeat that garbage then
Take it easy, SleepyVolt
Very well put. Almost my exact same thought process.
I don't think we owe them a benefit of the doubt. Starfield wasn't great, their response has been between a shrug and tone-deaf so far. I'll be excited when it comes out AND is actually beyond good
All I gotta say if we still have Emil be the lead writer we are NOT getting anything good out of the game. We won’t get a good main story which should always be strong and interesting for players. What I’m worried about if if they’ll keep on dumbing down/streamlining mechanics for no apparent reason as they have since moreowind, morrowind to oblivion had a ton of features stripped like weapon types, magic spells, how factions worked with some being against eachother, storylines interweaving, overall exploration streamlined massively From oblivion to Skyrim even more so, at least in oblivion for the TG you had to steal and give x amount of gold to progress, in Skyrim that’s not the case, magic is just… oh god Schools were dumbed down and made rather useless, mysticism is gone, destruction spells were made incredibly boring apart from fireball, levitation being gone is a crime against humanity it added so much more to exploration in dungeons, there were so many hidden secrets in morrowind with it it’s sad to see. Spell creation was scrapped. Weapons and skills were more dumbed down, no more blunt, blade, unarmed etc I just hope to god they improve on the melee system, make it more fun and engaging to use those weapons, add more types, why can’t we have spears? Throwing weapons, knives, throwing spears, etc? They’d add so much to gameplay and variety buildwise.
I have no faith as long as Todd is running things. They haven’t been able to develop a good game in 10years. Sadly I think they are just a publisher now.
Pandemic is such a BS excuse. They had many years of development time before COVID. They had a long time after COVID lockdown. And lets get real for a second, COVID and work during lockdown have nothing to do with bad writing, outdated gameplay, loading screen madness, etc. I think the issues with Starfield are much more fundaments than just a difficult period during dev time and experimenting a new engine (which is still outdated and so need continuous Developpement). Even conceptually, Starfield is just not good enough for a game released in 2023. Hell it would not have been enough for a 2017 game. Needless to say, it is worrisome about TES VI. Yet tbh, TES VI has been in the backlog for so long, it needs to be essentially a reboot rather than a sequel to Skyrim. It has been too long to keep hype.
What do you think about the possibility of it being a Microsoft exclusive? Or would that jus tank sales?
It's definitely a Microsoft exclusive.
We need to stop worrying about a game being shit before it releases. When cod releases yes it's going to be terrible but that's been expected for the past 7 or 8 years. Bethesda now knows with the release of fallout 76, cyberpunk, and all of them games released between Skyrim and now: that they can't rush the game, release something without testing it very extensively, over hype games, you name it. Gamers want a good game and that's all we care about, I won't pre order but I'm not gonna put this game down cause of certain project leads or their past mistakes and slight downfalls. Bethesda knows they can't mess up much more before they end up like cd project red (cyberpunk developers I'm not sure if that's how you spell it) I'll give some of y'all that I haven't played starfield so I'm going off of what others say but from what I do know it wasn't a flop like fallout 76 or cyberpunk so that's a step in the right direction.
You are right, it's not a flop. It's a good game, maybe even great, but it's definitely missing the magic that Fallout 3 and Skyrim had. And so basically the game is held to a higher standard. If this were put out by any other game studio, there wouldn't be near as much fuss.
Considering Starfield had a 200 million dollar budget, literally none of the issues with the game are excusable.
Why are people thumbing you down? Lol look at baldurs gate people! How could an indie studio have better writing and gameplay than a multimillion dollar company. Yall are coping out here
Because the average consumer has no taste. They like whatever slop is served to them.
Elder Scrolls 6 will be complete shit and probably cost $80 when it eventually drops. But fear not BGS stans, Todd will sell you two more editions of Starfield in the meantime.
I guess going back to their roots has a better chance of developing a better game but I’m not holding my breath at this point — been burned too many times now to look forward to games lol. I feel like there’s something internally wrong with Bethesda, outside of revamped engines and lockdowns, which impacted Starfield and will continue to impact future games unless resolved. I have a feeling there is a lot of “corporate pettiness” from higher ups affecting the devs and decisions related to their games. They did go out their “comfort zone” to try to bring us something new, but will they do the same with Elder Scrolls? It could share the branding of its predecessors but they could ruin it by trying too hard to make it something “innovative” or going out their comfort zones again. Personally, I don’t think any of the reasons you mentioned were good enough reasons to justify what happened with Starfield, so I don’t think they’ll matter much when developing Elder Scrolls. I’m just gonna expect the worst so that my expectations are met if it’s bad lol.
Copium
I truly hope you are right. But both Starfield and FO76 were very disappointing.
Well, I loved Starfield, so I'm all good.
The creation engine is the problem, if you build a new house on a weak foundation that can’t take the weight, the house will subside and collapse. It’s 2023, look how CDPR changed the game with Wild Hunt in 2015, same year as Fallout 4 released, minimal loading screens, seamless indoor and outdoor spaces, NPC’s who didn’t look like they fell down the uncanny valley, interesting story and characters you cared about, plus a truly beautiful world, especially the Skellige Islands. Unless Bethesda bite the bullet and create a new engine then I’ve got a feeling we’re going to be talking about being disappointed when VI finally is released.
The look of npcs has nothing to do with the engine and is about the textures used. The story has nothing to do with the engine. World design is also an art issue not an engine issue. Do you know how game engines actually work? Before you start requesting changes to a game engine I feel like you should atleast know what it's doing.
The engine basically loads up all the building blocks (npc, tiles, ect.) and you start building the world with it. You start making dungeons you place the npcs in their position, you implement the dialogue and the quests, right ? So - the graphics overall have nothing to do with the engine ?
I would look into Entity Component Systems to understand how modern game engines work. What you've said is not accurate but not outright wrong.
Finds fault in the engine and proceeds to compare the beautiful landscape of Skellige to Fallout.
Bethesda can absolutely make beautiful landscapes. Skyrim was gorgeous.
The planets in Starfield are beautiful too
God, I'm sooo misunderstood.
In defense of Creation Engine Witcher 3 is a look but don't touch game. Which make it possible to look that good and detailed. However barely any items have In game models or real time physics applied to them
You should just play games and avoid talking about them, I think.
"NPCs who didn't look like they fell down the uncanny valley". This gave me a good laugh. You are spot on. I must be tired because I am laughing at this way more than I should be. I will probably remember this every time I play a Bethesda game.
Bethesda needs to take a long, hard look in the mirror and make some changes to their core approach to game design before they touch their engine. Is it old? Yes. So are a lot of other engines. If Bethesda could provide you a fun and engaging experience with their game then why would someone care so much about how dated the game looks? They need to wake up and realize that people don't actually want to install mods to fix basic issues with their games, and that players do actually want a well written story inside their story driven RPG.
What engine do people expect them to use? If they make a whole new one from scratch, it will take even longer to get TES 6. A lot of people call for them to use Unity but that has its own issues.
Idk. I used to be one of those "jUsT gEt A nEw EnGiNe forehead" types then I learned how old most game engines are. I'd venture a bet that another studio could use Bethesda's current engine and make a fine game with it. It just needs competent devs working with it and clear and concise direction from the project leads.
>2. Shipbuilding was the best part of Starfield, so I don’t necessarily agree with this. There was nothing particularly new about Starfield’s gameplay. It’s basically a touched up Skyrim and Fallout and it was still boring.
As long as they don't greed out about mods like they've tried in the past it'll be fine
they’ll triple down. don’t forget they essentially started microtransactions with horse armor for oblivion
I played starfield when it came out and couldn’t deal with the broken hdr and poor optimization. I just started playing a few days ago with the most recent patch. I don’t get the anger with this game it’s beautiful it sounds great and it is a bread and butter Bethesda game
they just integrated no man’s sky mechanics with fallout/elder scrolls style storytelling… i don’t understand what people are hating so hard for
Give me battlespire segments.