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One of their biggest problems is that they have refused to adopt Unreal engine. They keep accumulating technical debt by refusing to rework their toolset that they built on top of an aging and now outdated engine. Bethesda only has a handful of engine devs, Epic has well over 1000, I believe, who work on Unreal. You can't compete with that. CD Projekt Red, who have a vastly superior engine in comparison, have even made the decision to move forward with Unreal. Epic won. Unreal is by far the best cutting edge engine out there. Bethesda needs to bite the bullet and switch.
I'm worried that not only did the chefs that cooked up such great games left the kitchen, that in replacing them Bethesda just hired a mass of line cooks that were only required to stick to the recipes handed down to them.
I stopped playing the game after a month after its release. There was no way I was going to spend $30 for more boredom. I just went back to No Man's Sky, who fixed their game for Free.
@@shiraisan3779 they make you purchase different components of a single skin to get the entire skin. That's the joke. Activision-Blizzard and Microsoft are the joke.
IMHO Emil Pagliarulo needs to be replaced as a lead writer. You compared Shattered Space to Far Harbour. He wasn't involved in Far Harbour, but in Shattered Space. And IMHO it shows. I really think he is the problem of Bethesdas writing. Also just watch some of his interviews, where he claimed players would make paper planes out of the stories anyway. Is someone like this motivated to write good stories?
His 'Talks From Story' does a great job of accidentally highlighting the problems with how Bethesda develops games. He outright bragged about not using centralized design documents and letting any random employee design a quest if they wanted to. He also referred to Skyrim's story as being "biblical" and admitted they ignore criticism.
@@ElyonDominus you dont need to get rid of emil just demote him, and have someone else be the lead. emil has do some good work hes just not good as a lead.
@@ΩΜΣΔ it's not just clearly it IS cut content. Early on into Starfield's release Bethesda themselves admitted to cutting Va'ruun content from the game to keep them "mysterious". But in reality, as you said, it was cut so they could call it a "DLC" and sell it to us. Pretty scummy of Bethesda in all honesty...
I feel like Bethesda keep learning the wrong lessons from their game. I want a Bethesda that makes a good world that is fun to explore but now it seems too much to ask.
Its not that they cant learn, its that they are willingly ignoring the points. I dont believe anyone can be that dense without willingly ignoring reality for monetary reasons. They want to keep doing what they are doing and they just hope the gaslighting will work on the costumers enough that everyone will keep buying their half backed copy paste games.
They learned all the right things, they can churn out anything and a certain group will buy it, look at the responses to all the comments it's a who's who of Stockholmers.
Bethesda is so arrogant that they think their Oblivion/Fallout 3 era game design and engine is still golden as the industry has evolved and left them in the dust. Every game they put out for the last 16 years is a regression from the previous release. They're stuck in the past and refuse to accept criticism. Anyone that is still excited for ES6 is huffing military grade copium. For Bethesda to be perceived as a top studio again, they need to ditch their shitty Creation engine and replace Todd and Emil who are the biggest weaknesses of their studio.
@@LordShadowZ people have the oddest misguided takes when the it comes to Bethesda. How can you claim they are stuck at fallout3/oblivion design wise then say they regressed? Which is it? And the engine is not the issue, it never was. If anything it's the one thing keeping them relevant along with elder scrolls. And last but not least, skyrim was their peak, and the numbers show.
The industry evolved and left them in the dust? What games exactly are you talking about? There are a few I can think of but none are either a direct comparison, or a massive upgrade. Baldur's Gate 3 is a very different game mechanically, but could compare in scale Dragon's Dogma 2 is not exactly that polished either Witcher 3 is old, and without character creation Cyberpunk only now is in a state it should've been on release 4 years ago Fromsoftware has completely different philosophy BioWare is struggling Stuff by Obsidian Entertainment is the closest anyone has come to a title of a Bethesda killer, but their games are usually a lot smaller in scale Am I missing something?
The weakest part of Skyrim was the radiant quests. Those ones that were generated with their semi random objectives that somehow still felt samey, and you'd just rush through them to get to the mission that matters. Bethesda, for some reason, thought they'd build 80% of a game around that kind of shit.
I played Starfield for maybe 50ish hours. I rescued the same scientist from the same cave at *LEAST* 15 times. I scanned the same "Melted Glacier" on hundreds of planets lightyears apart, hundreds of times. I got so good at clearing out the various POIs that I could probably qualify in speedrunning them, because every planet has 100 UC Outposts, 100 Cryo Labs, 100 Helium Plants, and they're all identical right down to where each coffee mug and pencil sits. 80% is a very generous estimate, given that the procedural content is literally infinite. You can land 5 feet from where you landed before and refresh the POIs and terrain generation. I hate it.
@@ElyonDominus Radiant quests weren't in Oblivion. Are you thinking of Radiant AI? (Which was also overpromised and underdelivered, so, you know, that's fair.)
Bethesda hasn't evolved with the industry. That's the number one problem. They're still trying to peddle mechanics, gameplay, and an engine almost a decade and a half out of date. Which could work, if they hadn't completely murdered their writing room to fill it with hack writers. A solid story can make up for a lot, but we haven't had that in a Bethesda game since Skyrim. Even Fallout 4 was a massive decline when it came to narrative and the player.
Skyrims story is average at best. Oblivion was the last game with an engaging story. Both its main story, side missions and dlc storyline were fantastic.
I've said it a million times... Todd Howard ain't the guy. He got hired straight to producer in '95, was made project lead on Morrowind, and has just been copying and pasting the same game over and over again without understanding why what he learned on Morrowind was so amazing. Bethesda will never get better until Todd is gone.
He worked on Arena as a tester for the CD-ROM version, worked as an additional designer on Daggerfall, became the project leader of Redguard and Morrowind, and has been the game director/executive producer from then onwards.
@@arbitrary_thoughts Cheers - corrected it. My point still stands though, he should not be director or executive producer... He got promoted way too quickly and clearly has no idea how to make something other than Morrowind.
@@hawkshot867 Personally I disagree, the games he's worked on have been successful. I've very much liked them and I'm far, far from being alone in having that perspective. BGS has continued to do different things and iterate. Not everything has been successful but they have done different things. Starfield feels like a blend of Daggerfall and their newer games. That's what I was expecting, and that's what I like. No other studio comes close to doing what BGS does at the same scale/scope. BGS isn't perfect, I don't like every aspect, and I certainly dislike the new monetization scheme of Creation Club/Creations. But overall, I like their games, and I've really liked Starfield. I'm not interested in the overly cinematic movie games that other AAAs make, I like BGS's gameplay of openworld rpg sandbox sims.
@@arbitrary_thoughts Yup nope, strongly disagree. From Software flipped the entire script on what makes RPGs great and Bethesda ain't it anymore. I'm glad you like Starfield and Daggerfall, but frankly those are ideas from almost 30 years ago at this point... I'm going to spend my money and limited time on new experiences and games. If I want to experience a good Bethesda experience I'll just play an extremely heavily modded playthrough of Skyrim. Starfield also didn't innovate AT ALL on the sandbox sim... Neither has Fallout 4 or 76 - I would LOVE for Elder Scrolls 6 to take the original Oblivion idea and run with it with modern tech... INNOVATE ON IT... But that's not going to happen lol.
Starfield was successful because people put their faith in Bethesda. They were hyped to play a new Bethesda game, and I believe that a lot of them continued to play because they put money down on an expensive game from a pedigree they believed in. They didn't think Bethesda would deliver such a dud and so they stuck it out, even if they weren't exactly having a blast, because they expected to find the fun. I don't think that Bethesda can trade on this kind of faith a second time, and I hope they understand that if TES VI turns out to be garbage then their star will have fallen.
I'll admit to being one of them to a degree, though the cost wasn't an issue due to game pass. I'll be the first to admit I was surprised by how lacking the game was. Don't get me wrong, I actually do largely enjoy the game, but more as a laze around and not take it seriously game rather than the intense focus I put into a game like Skyrim or Arkham game, I don't feel the same motivation. Starfield is a fine mess around, shoot up bad guys, build mildly interesting stuff game. It's a solid high C game, not an A game like Bethesda used to make. One thing that has been mentioned, that I do agree with, they should have made the map smaller, you only need to bother with a handful of the star systems in the game and you have all the resources, and a lot of them aren't just a little empty, they're completely empty. I wouldn't mind a few empty systems, but dozens of them that amount to 90% of the game? No, and yes actual space exploration may be like that, but that doesn't make a good game. Now that I'm rambling, one thing I did think of that would be realistic that might add fun, gun jams that can ruin weapons. That would enhance difficulty. Frankly starfield was by far the easiest game i've ever played and that's boring, Bethesda shouldn't do dark souls level challenge, that's not their niche, but it shouldn't be so easy you can have a toddler beat the game.
I’d argue they already have done it twice with Starfield. The first time they did it was with fallout 76. That being said in my experience game companies and IP’s seem to have a few games worth of goodwill to burn before it really blows up in their face. If you look at folks like BioWare or Ubisoft they had 2 or 3 stinkers that were successful through inertia before things really exploded in their face. I expect that Bethesda can survive one more substandard release through inertia, especially if it’s a big Franchise title, before they get their Anthem or Skull and Bones.
For me, it was the procedural generation. I'm huge on exploration in their games, I love wandering the landscape and finding random new quests or obscure bits of lore and loot because I just happened to go "Gee I wonder what's on the other side of that mountain". With Starfield, I'd experienced every POI within a few hours. I'd cleared the same base several times, but on different planets. I'd seen the same space encounters over and over and over. It just felt like there was 5 hours of handmade content and for the rest, they just said "Fuck it, let the computer shit out the rest of the game and figure it out"
@@Boomer04888 Yeah, the world building/environmental story telling was the one saving grace of all Bethesda games. Starfield took that away...so whats left to enjoy?
I know it's been said on many youtube videos but the issue is toxic positivity. These developers live in a bubble and get so used to lying to each other that they start to enjoy the smell of their own farts. If you can't give and receive honest criticism, then the creative endeavor will not improve.
This is the entire entertainment industry right now, its collapsing because they can't handle any criticism so they only listen to people who have a financial incentive to tell them what they want to hear. See Ubisoft saying their games are good because the people they bought Disney land vacations for gave it a good review.
These AAA companies spend so much money, but if your making a story driven game, then the most money should be spent on the writing. Make sure you have an editor for the writer, and then make sure the writing is something that you lonve, even before you start producing the game. The story should already be writen even before you start. I hear they have a team of writers, so why not have each of those team draft a story and then vote on which is the best? If they are incapable of producing a good story, why are they working for you?
BGS games aren't really supposed to prioritise the narrative/story. BGS games have been openworld rpg sandbox sandbox sims. Fallout started off more narrative driven, but look at their other IPs. They've just reduced the scope due to tech limitations, but they've always wanted to go big similarly to Daggerfall.
@@arbitrary_thoughts elder scrolls is a story based game, same with fallout 3-4 which includes NV. Without the story, the open world is just empty, like any of the starfield planets, you can go explore. The story is what allows you to immerse into the open world, the open world is not what makes any of the bethesda games good. You have two types of story telling, one is the physical dialog, the other is the environmental storytelling, both are lacking in starfield, that is why it sucks. Not everyone wants to create their own story, and that tends to be really boring unless you have gameplay like minecraft or the forest, or rust. Fallout 2, Morrowind and Oblivion were always about the story first, that is what made those games so good.
One of my favorite things about Morrowind was that you had to get used to taking wacky forms of public transportation. teleportation, boats, giant fleas - it felt real. I remember when Oblivion came out and we all lost our minds because there was A Compass. Honestly, instead of putting Skyrim on every platform imaginable, they should just remake Morrowind *exactly the same* only with modern graphics. Yes, I'm one of those people.
They won't do it unless it can be made for very cheap. Majority of their playerbase won't enjoy it. That's just business perspective mixed with gamers expectations for popular titles. Someone hits some kind of roadblock, gets angry, leaves negative review and move to another title and never looks back. Personally when it comes to this more old-school way of exploration Subnautica worked well for me so there is still some niche for it but going on same scale popularity as Bethesda titles with games built on more demanding concepts... Well, it's not a surprise that their games got popular as those were easier, more accessible. Would be great to see refreshed Morrowind that isn't about quest marks etc. As much as I don't like remasters but Morrowind could have version with just slightly less bugs xD
@@andrzejnadgirl2029 yeah bc most of the players that enjoy skyrim don't actually know how to play a true rpg. They are the same camp that say bg3 is trash where as its super deep and customizable.
@@andrzejnadgirl2029 I'm pretty sure most people who love Morrowind, like myself, know that most Skyrim fans wouldn't like it. It just sucks to know that the company you loved for making a game that formed a part of your childhood is now more likely to make Skyrim Mobile Edition with a Candycrush DLC than they are to ever revisit the things about Morrowind that made it so special.
I don't think there will be a game like Morrowind again. No company is going to make a game without waypoint markers. My ideal remastered version of Morrowind would be improved graphics, better combat mechanics, and a detailed player driven map system, with pins, notes, and pens. Probably a better way to organize and search quests too.
Maybe this is a hot take, but I actually (somewhat) disagree that their formula is outdated. I think some parts are, like the zoomed conversation camera and some of the quest design. But I believe, overall, their formula is still fine. The problem is that they took *_out_* too much stuff from their formula instead of refining what was great about it. They gutted all the in depth RP systems that people loved, they stopped being creative and taking risks in their quest design, they pushed for more procedural generation, they all but abandoned the Radiant AI, the list goes on. The formula is only stale because they made it BORING. On top of the writing just getting worse and worse and worse.
actual hot take, i disagree, their formula for the past few games has proven to be increasingly boring due to them "improving" it according to their own words by removing more features that the previous games thrived on. morrowind is ancient af, but its far more immersive then skyrim when it comes to rpg mechanics.
I agree that the idea is great, but they haven't added enough to it. That's what Starfield felt to me... Like they played it was too safe and didn't expand it enough.
Haven't bought Starfield, was obvious from the first in-game trailer they released that it would be disappointing. I hope they surprise me with ES6 eventually, but it looks like I yet again get to keep my money.
ES6 will continue the skyrim trash that they keep pushing what they need to do is go back to dagger fall and morrowind if they want to truly make a master piece again
Watched a youtuber that liked Starfield make a "review" on Shattered Space. He didn't go ultra in depth - was more like a friend chatting about their thoughts on a subject. But it all basically got wrapped up into a statement he made towards the end, and I'm paraphrasing here: "Bethesda listened to feedback, which is good, but they listened to people who already disliked Starfield. This DLC doesn't fix enough for them, and dilutes what those of us who liked the game enjoyed about it." Fact is this: They should've stuck to their guns with Starfield imo. In trying to make everyone happy, they made everyone disappointed, and I don't know how exactly they're going to get Starfield out of this ditch it's currently in.
Shattered Space was fun, but I do hope they lean back into the large scale of the game and continue to add to the proc gen/POIs and existing game systems.
@@iseru-q2m It's not the same as the main game, which is why people who actually liked the main game don't like the DLC either. You're only listening to the side that already disliked Starfield in the first place. I've listened to both sides. They tried to appease everyone and thus appeased no one. That's why both sides aren't happy right now. Don't just listen to one side of the conversation.
That's exactly what I was trying to put my finger on with Fallout 4. I really dislike the story and quest design, but it is undeniably fun. It has the best combat of any fallout by far, and the crafting still knocks my pants off sometimes. We really need Fallout New Vegas, but you get Fallout 4 style gunplay and and overhauled crafting system. But then again, might as well as ask for a remaster with all the cut content put back in XD
Value is also related to the other things you could purchase at the same time. There are more and more options, and smaller developers delivering better products with fewer bugs for lower prices...
I don't see $3 of value here, because no matter what is in it the result is the same. We get to float around and bop into lights until they swirl and we get a useless power so late in the game that we don't need it. Our settlements are meaningless dumps of resources that produce nothing we couldn't get easier at a shop or just by mining for a couple of minutes. The cities are bland and tiny, there are no MECHS, giant FLEET SPACE BATTLES or XENO-SWARMS despite showing us a slideshow involving all three. Nothing matters in the game, you just reset and walk around a bunch again and again through their uninspired story that might have gotten attention 20 years ago.
Unpopular opinion time - just because Todd Howard is a walking meme, doesn't mean he's a good director at BGS. He is so delusional and out of touch with the expectations and standards of games in today's climate.
one of my favorite moments in Skyrim was traveling to windhelm on foot, getting lost, running from a dragon, encountering a dwarven ruin I was too weak to enter, but could loot the outside, finally reaching windhelm was it was snowing, went under the bridge to see if anything to loot, and heard a dragon in the distance, and saw it circling over the lumber yard it was just so cool, really had nothing like that in starfield, no great moment of awe, of wonder.
@@olgagaming5544graphics dont matter when the engine is literally breaking apart due to the "patches", fallout 76 is a good example of what hapoens when bethesda gets too comfy with their engine and doesnt try atleast patching up some of the holes in their previous patches, since they arent good at fixing anything according to modders who make bug fix mods on nexus and moddb
changing the game engine will not change the end result for BGS. its the design philosophy of the company that is still stuck in the past and the horrible writing.
I don't think *anyone* wants Bethesda to fail; If you are a fan of the Bethesda IP's we very much want them to succeed. However, with release after release being either bad or mid at best, frustration is definitely setting in. Especially when we try to offer constructive criticism and they seem completely tone-deaf to it.
For me its the lack of self awareness and unwilling to learn from their mistakes. Just listen to Todd and Emil. They seem unable to listen to the fans. They think they're Midas, but ever since F4, everything they touch turns to shit. I'd prefer Microsoft to sack Emil and relegate Todd to a counseling position, and hire a guy like Tim Cain to put Fallout back on track. Even better: hire CDPR to develop the next Fallout game. Im done with Bethesda.
Remember, for the price of shattered space you could buy 6 copies of Bejeweled 3 for you and the homies, which is probably a better idea since Bejeweled 3 is HEAT!
The problem of Starfield's expansion is that it should have been day one content and the whole "open star system" concept was essentially not only a wasted endeavor but a poorly pursued one. They should have just hand crafted planets from the start, jam pack it with encounters and then have some auxiliary "randomness planets" for exploration.
Would not have predicted a Buffet-relaying-Graham quote "price is what you pay, value is what you get" in the intro here. But definitely germane. Also appreciate the inflation-adjusted references to prior DLC to make the price point. Well done.
In Bethesda games there are always two main characters: the player and the map. This ti,e around they didn't play to their strengths but their weaknesses. Two mandates I believe killed starfield: The 1000 PLANETS and the NG+ Twist. Still can't believe they nuked the main quest which is essentially a fetch quest to follow on the trend of Marvel multiverses.
Star wars lore oddly has an answer to this exploration problem. In star wars planets are connected by hyper space lanes. In these lanes you can go into hyper space and safely make travel faster. They should try a system like this to guide initial exploration and create a bed rock of world building and exploration.
How can you enjoy your day when you share it with everyone? Time is a private thing. The dragon hides it from us all, parceling it out in dribs and drabs. Save your time. Save your time. I keep mine locked up tight. Where no one can find it. Not even Him.
I think Starfield should be accepted for what it is: An experimental passion project courtesy of our old friend Todd Howard and his team. They tried something new and I respect them for that. I don’t think we’ll be seeing a sequel to this game anytime soon, if ever, which might be for the best.
The problem is the rest of the context you left out. They charged 60 dollars for it, and 30 for this expansion. And for the last year, they've been saying it's the best game ever, it's everybody elses' fault if they don't like it, and even publicly shamed random customers for sharing negative feedback. If that earns your respect, I guess your respect isn't worth much. Personally, I'm pretty disgusted by their behavior and they've lost most of what little respect I had left for them after 15 different Skyrim releases and the FO76 debacle.
Except it's a literal $70 product and Bethesda is using their horrible development cycles wasting time on a game a lot of people don't like/are bored by. Starfield would be less irritating if Bethesda's IPs were managed better
You hit the nail on the head with the discontiguous nature of Starfield. I still remember first playing Morrowind and being amazed by the expansive world, and even though Fallout 4 lost a lot of the RPG elements it still had what I call a "Bethesda World." You don't want to fast travel because there's so much cool stuff you can find in between. It can be an expansive dungeon, or just a dead guy beheaded in a bathtub surrounded by mannequins holding machetes. Starfield has no "Between," and that's what hurts it most for me. You can't just see something, turn right, and you're in a whole new unexpected adventure. It removes the sense of discovery that was one of their earlier games' greatest strengths.
How does Bethesda's dev team grow from 100 to 500 and then the number of hand crafted experiences declines? The game is the equivalent of 3 bigger cities in Skyrim without any of the dungeons in the wild. The expansion added no new dungeon patterns to planets? Incredible.
Brothers, do not preorder Elder Scrolls 6. The Bethesda we knew is long gone. The talent that brought us Morrowind through Skyrim is either gone or consumed by the corporate machine. Look to small Dev companies to find where that passion went.
In this recent wake of A.I. and future technologies, I think it's completely fair to say, that Starfield, pehaps among others, poses a rather important question; IS, there room within human civilization, to continue entertaining a sense of Mystery, Curiosity, Adventure, Interest, Exploration, and overall a personally held chase for answer? With all our looming possibilities, can we remain respecting personal goal, and excitement for whatever in life, is around the corner? I say that this game certainly stands for this, in such long-standing light of what has so commonly remained the experience of Elder Scrolls. Can a historical fantasy setting's focus of loose logics and unrefined scope of tangible travels and length of land, even truly exist in a scifi setting?
The Formula is fine, the writing is boring. The Characters are boring, the Companions are boring, the romance options are boring, the NPCs are milk toast fetch quest givers, the enemies are most of the time the same boring guys with guns over and over... the world/universe building wasn't even there for Starfield. They talk about Mechs, show us mechs, we don't get to play with Mechs, we don't get to fight Mechs, they dangle Capital Ships in front of us, we don't get to fly that, the Starborn ships, don't even have a bed or a toilet, by the time you finally get one of those your own Ship is fully decked out and ten times better and you can't customize the Starborn Ship, it isn't explained who build those or where they come from or why you even get one... every single System in Starfield feels unfinished, as if they just put a base idea out there as minimum viable product and hope for Modders to do something worthwhile with it. ...which they probably would, if at least the world was interesting and full enough of content to put in the work for it.
How cool of a perk would it be to get mech schematics by getting approval by all the major factions, now that we have the Va'ruun? That was my hope. Another trip into a deeper part of the archives to get the plans and being able to deploy it onto planets as a follower/pilot. Make it cost a lot of materials for upgrades and only can be built in a base so they have SOME use instead of being an afterthought leftover from F4.
There's like 3 enemy types that 99% of the entire game revolves around. Crimson, Ecliptics, and the occasional Zealots. I have killed more pirates from each of those factions than there are citizens in New Atlantis, like 50 times over. That's not saying much because they made New Atlantis to look like there's at most, 100 people living there.
Bethesda lost their spark long, long ago. The last game they put out that was truly great was Morrowind. You had a world that was complete, didn't use level scaling exclusively, had hidden legendary items and tons of hidden items in general, you could just FIND amazing game changing stuff. Then they put out real honest to god expansions, not dlc's. Oblivion was decent but was definitely the point that their downfall started.
On the topic of 'natural space' between points of interest, it is very unfortunate that Bethesda didn't allow for ships to manually land/leave planets or even fly within the atmosphere and that kills immersion. If No Man's Sky had used loading screens for landing and taking off from planets, it would not have fared as well after the successful comeback (imo).
It turns out when the game is mid, players want something to improve the core experience, not "here's a 30 dollar side theme park while the game is still in a miserable state".
I think this was an unwinnable situation because the DLC is actually pretty good. Best content in the game by far. Best quests, best city, best locale outside the city. Shattered Space actually delivered what it promised. The problem is that Shattered Space is in Starfield, and entirely self contained, when Starfield needs ... a lot of help in the core game to put it lightly.
The problem is that Bethesda hasn't really made a different game since Skyrim. Everything is Skyrim with a different paint job. They may add a mechanic, or change the story to be a different setting, but the BONES of the game are all Skyrim-coded. The minimap feature is basically a copy/paste, the waypoint system, fast travel points - it's all the same stuff. You can't just keep making the same game over and over and expect people to just keep buying it for increasing prices. They had a chance to do something REALLY amazing with Starfield, to give us a space sim with modular ships and great space combat, but everything felt like it was tacked onto a Skyrim graphics mod that was made 10 years ago. Suits looking for money printing IPs is killing creativity in games. Everybody wants that infinite money glitch game instead of just making a good game.
Starfield is more akin to No Man's Sky, they over promised, under delivered, and left us with a hollow shell of a game. The biggest difference is that Bethesda ain't likely to actually fix the game in the way that No Man's Sky was fixed.
At this point I feel hesitant to hope for a change in direction, just look at Ubisoft. They would rather watch it all burn than admit there is a problem.
_Fallout 76, Starfield,_ paid mods, unnecessary updates breaking things... for me, _The Elder Scrolls VI_ has gone from "preorder" to "wait for reviews and maybe a sale".
The fact that after a dlc launch that Starfield has half the amount of people playing it compared to Skyrim a 10+ old year game shows how big of a flop it is.
We, as a fan base, need to come to terms with the fact that the team who created Morrowind was gone by the time it shipped. Bethesda ran on the inertia of that team but have thus far had no new infusion of RPG thought nor game mechanic innovation since Oblivion when they got rid of character skill and became an action adventure studio.
I'm utterly addicted to starfield right now. Imo it's their best game by a longshot. The factions quests are more engrossing than any previous questlines and the universe is massive. I see no issues. Has my attention over Metaphor which I'm bouncing between on quick resume. There's 20 million people who love it. The small percentage who don't seem to all make their living with TH-cam or they only own a PlayStation. Strange.
its not that bethesda CANT build games people love, its that they WONT, that takes too much money you have to make the devs actually enjoy being there and flourish and have time to do what they need to do
I just checked and I managed 48.7 hours on Starfield before giving up in utter boredom. Even though I own it, I won't be re-installing it to play Shattered Space.
Imagine if “base” Starfield was only in one galaxy. and then dlc took place on small parts near it. the best part is exploration.. almost nobody wants a game that’s mostly procedurally generated
One thing that's impressive with Bethesda, is how their games consistently feel outdated in every way. Daggerfall was truly the last innovative game they released. I love Morrowind, but if you compare it to the games that released the same year, it feels so old and outdated in comparison. It's like they're in a cave, trying to build a rocket, but nobody is anywhere close enough to be make up for the lack of resources with skill. Meanwhile outside the cave, right across the street is every other normal big game developer making games don't instantly feel outdated. The only positive "innovation" they've had in recent games that I can think of, is the ship builder in Starfield was okay despite its many lacking QoL aspects, other than that we're basically back to Daggerfall. I'm convinced that the biggest reason they haven't crashed earlier, is because there isn't enough competition in the market for the itch that Bethesda games normally try to scratch.
My question: How many Big Macs could you buy in the year of Oblivion’s release, with the money it costed to by Oblivion. Compare that to the number of Big Macs you could buy today for the cost of Starfield on release.
Let me add this in, I bought the expansion pass for fallout 4 in 2016 for $40. I got two pretty good DLCs and an amazing DLC in nuka world, automatron, and far harbor. Harbor. We got some stuff packs in all of the workshops. Every one of those DLCs was better value than shattered space...
What the remake of Dead Space (and other large budget huge team remasters) proves is that highly leveraged AAA game development is piss poor at crafting a new story arc or game and is pretty good at taking an already crafted story / game and remastering it. You don't get quality from numbers. It comes from specific, unique and highly paid members of society. As it always has.
I've been saying for years that Todd is not a game designer. He's a marketing guy. Look at what they did to fallout, compare fallout 1 and 2 to Fallout 3 and the difference in writing and worldbuilding is NIGHT AND DAY. And its only gotten worse with time, mechanics have been simplified instead of evolving and fallout 4 became a game where people dont even remember the main quest.
It's kind of sad when I initially saw Starfield and my only hope is that the mods would make it a good game. Skyrim is a good open world game, but it has too much open and not enough world. I honestly just wanted to see modders turn Starfield into Trials in Tainted Space
Got starfield as a gift with my graphics card so i played it and got near the end of the campaign but never finished it. I just got, bored. And for a bethesda game that was disheartening. My faith in the dlc was low so waited to see what others said. Seeing where it stands it is an easy pass
#1. This story is not compelling. It is dull. The UNC questline was better than the main story. I think it was a mistake to make such a massive space game and not at least have hints of other sentient alien species.
All of the technical issues and bland gameplay are bad, but honestly I think the biggest issue with Starfield is how violently uninteresting the story and lore are.
I put in 200 hours and enjoyed my time in it. The Inon Zur score is fantastic (as always), I love that Tuvok and Major Kira from Star Trek are my parents, and some of the environments are genuinely great. I even liked the main campaign, and I’d rank a couple of the quests among the best they’ve ever done, but unlike past BGS games I’ve felt no desire to return. It just doesn’t have the long term hook that keeps me coming back to Elder Scrolls and Fallout. They failed to create a new universe compelling enough for the majority of players and I find it hard to believe they’ll ever devote the level of resources needed to reinvent it on a level like current NMS and Phantom Liberty, which was a nearly 3 year $100 million overhaul. From here I’d expect BGS to be all hands on deck for ES6.
And the Scrolls have foretold, of new games that feel old, That when Creation fails and screens always load! Bethesda, once the king of games, flame now frost-bound, With no warmth to bring life to the world!
I really wish we could see the details of the contract Bethesda signed to use the Gamebryo Engine for Morrowind back in the day... because quite frankly their obsession with this engine is just... getting weird at this point.
I desperately hope The Elder Scrolls 6 comes together. Glimmers of Bethesda are there, but it seems clear that project and team scale risks losing the old magic.
► Enjoy games, without the bs: bellular.games
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Wow. A+ copium
I would prepare to be greatly disappointed
One of their biggest problems is that they have refused to adopt Unreal engine. They keep accumulating technical debt by refusing to rework their toolset that they built on top of an aging and now outdated engine. Bethesda only has a handful of engine devs, Epic has well over 1000, I believe, who work on Unreal. You can't compete with that. CD Projekt Red, who have a vastly superior engine in comparison, have even made the decision to move forward with Unreal. Epic won. Unreal is by far the best cutting edge engine out there. Bethesda needs to bite the bullet and switch.
I'm worried that not only did the chefs that cooked up such great games left the kitchen, that in replacing them Bethesda just hired a mass of line cooks that were only required to stick to the recipes handed down to them.
I stopped playing the game after a month after its release. There was no way I was going to spend $30 for more boredom. I just went back to No Man's Sky, who fixed their game for Free.
I like the part where he said "$30 is multiple indie games, or 3/4 of a mythic weapon skin in Overwatch"
Also Fallout London made by people for free.
What? 3/4 of a skin? What is happening
Any game with skins that expensive sounds like a sh*t moneygrab for fools with too much money and not enough sense.
@@shiraisan3779 they make you purchase different components of a single skin to get the entire skin. That's the joke. Activision-Blizzard and Microsoft are the joke.
as someone that has been buying a ton of indie games from 5-20$'s I can confirm that.
IMHO Emil Pagliarulo needs to be replaced as a lead writer. You compared Shattered Space to Far Harbour. He wasn't involved in Far Harbour, but in Shattered Space. And IMHO it shows. I really think he is the problem of Bethesdas writing. Also just watch some of his interviews, where he claimed players would make paper planes out of the stories anyway. Is someone like this motivated to write good stories?
You have to get rid of Todd to get rid of Emil.
His 'Talks From Story' does a great job of accidentally highlighting the problems with how Bethesda develops games. He outright bragged about not using centralized design documents and letting any random employee design a quest if they wanted to. He also referred to Skyrim's story as being "biblical" and admitted they ignore criticism.
@@ElyonDominus you dont need to get rid of emil just demote him, and have someone else be the lead. emil has do some good work hes just not good as a lead.
@@foxto100 a message needs to be sent. The last good work he did was in 2011 mate. He and Todd both need to go.
@@foxto100 Emil is protected by Todd. You're not getting a new lead without replacing Todd and if Todd is gone Emil is, too.
Honestly shattered space is Cleary cut content with a 30 dollar price tag on it
@@ΩΜΣΔ it's not just clearly it IS cut content. Early on into Starfield's release Bethesda themselves admitted to cutting Va'ruun content from the game to keep them "mysterious". But in reality, as you said, it was cut so they could call it a "DLC" and sell it to us.
Pretty scummy of Bethesda in all honesty...
@@saerbhreathach540reminds me of destiny 1
It seems very much like unfinished content, a faction questline, that they tacked back on and made into a bigger story DLC.
@@saerbhreathach540So what's new?
@@mediumvillain They arent reasonable enough to see that
I feel like Bethesda keep learning the wrong lessons from their game. I want a Bethesda that makes a good world that is fun to explore but now it seems too much to ask.
Its not that they cant learn, its that they are willingly ignoring the points. I dont believe anyone can be that dense without willingly ignoring reality for monetary reasons. They want to keep doing what they are doing and they just hope the gaslighting will work on the costumers enough that everyone will keep buying their half backed copy paste games.
They learned all the right things, they can churn out anything and a certain group will buy it, look at the responses to all the comments it's a who's who of Stockholmers.
Bethesda is so arrogant that they think their Oblivion/Fallout 3 era game design and engine is still golden as the industry has evolved and left them in the dust. Every game they put out for the last 16 years is a regression from the previous release. They're stuck in the past and refuse to accept criticism. Anyone that is still excited for ES6 is huffing military grade copium.
For Bethesda to be perceived as a top studio again, they need to ditch their shitty Creation engine and replace Todd and Emil who are the biggest weaknesses of their studio.
And it won't happen. As we've seen with company after company, the boss rules with an iron fist, even if he's driving them off a cliff.
@@LordShadowZ people have the oddest misguided takes when the it comes to Bethesda. How can you claim they are stuck at fallout3/oblivion design wise then say they regressed? Which is it? And the engine is not the issue, it never was. If anything it's the one thing keeping them relevant along with elder scrolls. And last but not least, skyrim was their peak, and the numbers show.
@@TheanimeisformeFacts
The industry evolved and left them in the dust? What games exactly are you talking about? There are a few I can think of but none are either a direct comparison, or a massive upgrade.
Baldur's Gate 3 is a very different game mechanically, but could compare in scale
Dragon's Dogma 2 is not exactly that polished either
Witcher 3 is old, and without character creation
Cyberpunk only now is in a state it should've been on release 4 years ago
Fromsoftware has completely different philosophy
BioWare is struggling
Stuff by Obsidian Entertainment is the closest anyone has come to a title of a Bethesda killer, but their games are usually a lot smaller in scale
Am I missing something?
@BlackComet95 mods for Bethesda's own games like Fallout London?
Oh and you also forgot Read Dead Redemption 2
The weakest part of Skyrim was the radiant quests. Those ones that were generated with their semi random objectives that somehow still felt samey, and you'd just rush through them to get to the mission that matters.
Bethesda, for some reason, thought they'd build 80% of a game around that kind of shit.
I played Starfield for maybe 50ish hours. I rescued the same scientist from the same cave at *LEAST* 15 times. I scanned the same "Melted Glacier" on hundreds of planets lightyears apart, hundreds of times. I got so good at clearing out the various POIs that I could probably qualify in speedrunning them, because every planet has 100 UC Outposts, 100 Cryo Labs, 100 Helium Plants, and they're all identical right down to where each coffee mug and pencil sits.
80% is a very generous estimate, given that the procedural content is literally infinite. You can land 5 feet from where you landed before and refresh the POIs and terrain generation. I hate it.
The weakest part of Skyrim was the selling point of Oblivion. Neat how they haven't innovated, excluding paid mods, since Morrowind huh?
@@ElyonDominus Radiant quests weren't in Oblivion. Are you thinking of Radiant AI? (Which was also overpromised and underdelivered, so, you know, that's fair.)
the weakest part of skyrim was the quests period, they're all bad, surface level slop calling back to things that were better done in previous titles
The quests were bad but the world is empty and there are no meaningful RPG elements in an RPG game.
Bethesda hasn't evolved with the industry. That's the number one problem. They're still trying to peddle mechanics, gameplay, and an engine almost a decade and a half out of date.
Which could work, if they hadn't completely murdered their writing room to fill it with hack writers. A solid story can make up for a lot, but we haven't had that in a Bethesda game since Skyrim. Even Fallout 4 was a massive decline when it came to narrative and the player.
Pretty sure the engine is older than that
Skyrims story is average at best. Oblivion was the last game with an engaging story. Both its main story, side missions and dlc storyline were fantastic.
How has the industry evolved, exactly?
@Adoring-Fan i never played BGS games for the story.
The problem isn't the engine of the gameplay it's them producing mediocre content
I've said it a million times... Todd Howard ain't the guy. He got hired straight to producer in '95, was made project lead on Morrowind, and has just been copying and pasting the same game over and over again without understanding why what he learned on Morrowind was so amazing. Bethesda will never get better until Todd is gone.
He worked on Arena as a tester for the CD-ROM version, worked as an additional designer on Daggerfall, became the project leader of Redguard and Morrowind, and has been the game director/executive producer from then onwards.
@@arbitrary_thoughts Cheers - corrected it. My point still stands though, he should not be director or executive producer... He got promoted way too quickly and clearly has no idea how to make something other than Morrowind.
@@hawkshot867 Personally I disagree, the games he's worked on have been successful. I've very much liked them and I'm far, far from being alone in having that perspective.
BGS has continued to do different things and iterate. Not everything has been successful but they have done different things. Starfield feels like a blend of Daggerfall and their newer games. That's what I was expecting, and that's what I like. No other studio comes close to doing what BGS does at the same scale/scope. BGS isn't perfect, I don't like every aspect, and I certainly dislike the new monetization scheme of Creation Club/Creations.
But overall, I like their games, and I've really liked Starfield. I'm not interested in the overly cinematic movie games that other AAAs make, I like BGS's gameplay of openworld rpg sandbox sims.
@@arbitrary_thoughts Yup nope, strongly disagree. From Software flipped the entire script on what makes RPGs great and Bethesda ain't it anymore. I'm glad you like Starfield and Daggerfall, but frankly those are ideas from almost 30 years ago at this point... I'm going to spend my money and limited time on new experiences and games. If I want to experience a good Bethesda experience I'll just play an extremely heavily modded playthrough of Skyrim. Starfield also didn't innovate AT ALL on the sandbox sim... Neither has Fallout 4 or 76 - I would LOVE for Elder Scrolls 6 to take the original Oblivion idea and run with it with modern tech... INNOVATE ON IT... But that's not going to happen lol.
Todd’s high point was Skyrim. While Fallout 4 was a decent game, Starfield is a literal carbon copy of Skyrim with space and sci-fi themes.
Starfield was successful because people put their faith in Bethesda. They were hyped to play a new Bethesda game, and I believe that a lot of them continued to play because they put money down on an expensive game from a pedigree they believed in. They didn't think Bethesda would deliver such a dud and so they stuck it out, even if they weren't exactly having a blast, because they expected to find the fun. I don't think that Bethesda can trade on this kind of faith a second time, and I hope they understand that if TES VI turns out to be garbage then their star will have fallen.
I'll admit to being one of them to a degree, though the cost wasn't an issue due to game pass. I'll be the first to admit I was surprised by how lacking the game was. Don't get me wrong, I actually do largely enjoy the game, but more as a laze around and not take it seriously game rather than the intense focus I put into a game like Skyrim or Arkham game, I don't feel the same motivation. Starfield is a fine mess around, shoot up bad guys, build mildly interesting stuff game. It's a solid high C game, not an A game like Bethesda used to make. One thing that has been mentioned, that I do agree with, they should have made the map smaller, you only need to bother with a handful of the star systems in the game and you have all the resources, and a lot of them aren't just a little empty, they're completely empty. I wouldn't mind a few empty systems, but dozens of them that amount to 90% of the game? No, and yes actual space exploration may be like that, but that doesn't make a good game. Now that I'm rambling, one thing I did think of that would be realistic that might add fun, gun jams that can ruin weapons. That would enhance difficulty. Frankly starfield was by far the easiest game i've ever played and that's boring, Bethesda shouldn't do dark souls level challenge, that's not their niche, but it shouldn't be so easy you can have a toddler beat the game.
I’d argue they already have done it twice with Starfield. The first time they did it was with fallout 76. That being said in my experience game companies and IP’s seem to have a few games worth of goodwill to burn before it really blows up in their face. If you look at folks like BioWare or Ubisoft they had 2 or 3 stinkers that were successful through inertia before things really exploded in their face. I expect that Bethesda can survive one more substandard release through inertia, especially if it’s a big Franchise title, before they get their Anthem or Skull and Bones.
I think the problem with Starfield is that it lacks the charm/kitsch that Fallout and Elder Scrolls has so all the “jank” stands out more.
For me, it was the procedural generation. I'm huge on exploration in their games, I love wandering the landscape and finding random new quests or obscure bits of lore and loot because I just happened to go "Gee I wonder what's on the other side of that mountain". With Starfield, I'd experienced every POI within a few hours. I'd cleared the same base several times, but on different planets. I'd seen the same space encounters over and over and over. It just felt like there was 5 hours of handmade content and for the rest, they just said "Fuck it, let the computer shit out the rest of the game and figure it out"
@@Boomer04888
Yeah, the world building/environmental story telling was the one saving grace of all Bethesda games. Starfield took that away...so whats left to enjoy?
The problem is that it's terrible.
I know it's been said on many youtube videos but the issue is toxic positivity. These developers live in a bubble and get so used to lying to each other that they start to enjoy the smell of their own farts. If you can't give and receive honest criticism, then the creative endeavor will not improve.
This!
The question is, when will they start listening?
It's a very toxic environment to be in where everybody's constantly blowing smoke up each other's asses
This is the entire entertainment industry right now, its collapsing because they can't handle any criticism so they only listen to people who have a financial incentive to tell them what they want to hear.
See Ubisoft saying their games are good because the people they bought Disney land vacations for gave it a good review.
@@dmdeign7116 Todd and Emil would rather burn down the entire studio than ever, ever admit they are as incompetent as they actually are.
These AAA companies spend so much money, but if your making a story driven game, then the most money should be spent on the writing. Make sure you have an editor for the writer, and then make sure the writing is something that you lonve, even before you start producing the game. The story should already be writen even before you start.
I hear they have a team of writers, so why not have each of those team draft a story and then vote on which is the best? If they are incapable of producing a good story, why are they working for you?
BGS games aren't really supposed to prioritise the narrative/story. BGS games have been openworld rpg sandbox sandbox sims. Fallout started off more narrative driven, but look at their other IPs. They've just reduced the scope due to tech limitations, but they've always wanted to go big similarly to Daggerfall.
@@arbitrary_thoughts elder scrolls is a story based game, same with fallout 3-4 which includes NV. Without the story, the open world is just empty, like any of the starfield planets, you can go explore. The story is what allows you to immerse into the open world, the open world is not what makes any of the bethesda games good.
You have two types of story telling, one is the physical dialog, the other is the environmental storytelling, both are lacking in starfield, that is why it sucks. Not everyone wants to create their own story, and that tends to be really boring unless you have gameplay like minecraft or the forest, or rust.
Fallout 2, Morrowind and Oblivion were always about the story first, that is what made those games so good.
Starfield doesn’t feel like a game that justifies it’s long development time, priority over Elder Scrolls/Fallout, and existence.
Bethesda is stuck in the early 2010s. Same engine, same design philosophy, same Tom Howard.
2010's? Oblivion came out 2006, and they said it was their main motivation for quest design for Starfield.
There are plenty of good games of that era. It's not a date thing.
Todd ain't the problem, it's Emil
IMHO it's worse, they are not stagnating, they are regressing when it comes to RPG elements and story telling.
@@arglebargle5531 Im waiting for Starfield New Vegas 😎
Todd and Emil are Bethesda's biggest problems, even bigger than their engine
will you all stop talking about engines when you don't understand them?..
Bethesda fan’s tolerance for playing in glorified cat littler boxes is impressive and it helps leads to Bethesda feeling comfortable to never change.
But what if I like being raw dogged by Big Daddy Howard? What then?
I've like sandbox games ever since GTA 3. I still like the style. Keeping me on rails isn't a lot of fun for me.
Oh come on man, there's a reason those "glorified cat boxes" are the MOST modded for games in history
"Starfield is part of the big three" No, Starfield is NOT Curly, it is barely Shemp.
A shemp reference???
In the year of our lord 2024?
I like it.
One of my favorite things about Morrowind was that you had to get used to taking wacky forms of public transportation. teleportation, boats, giant fleas - it felt real. I remember when Oblivion came out and we all lost our minds because there was A Compass. Honestly, instead of putting Skyrim on every platform imaginable, they should just remake Morrowind *exactly the same* only with modern graphics. Yes, I'm one of those people.
They won't do it unless it can be made for very cheap.
Majority of their playerbase won't enjoy it. That's just business perspective mixed with gamers expectations for popular titles. Someone hits some kind of roadblock, gets angry, leaves negative review and move to another title and never looks back.
Personally when it comes to this more old-school way of exploration Subnautica worked well for me so there is still some niche for it but going on same scale popularity as Bethesda titles with games built on more demanding concepts... Well, it's not a surprise that their games got popular as those were easier, more accessible.
Would be great to see refreshed Morrowind that isn't about quest marks etc. As much as I don't like remasters but Morrowind could have version with just slightly less bugs xD
@@andrzejnadgirl2029 yeah bc most of the players that enjoy skyrim don't actually know how to play a true rpg. They are the same camp that say bg3 is trash where as its super deep and customizable.
@@andrzejnadgirl2029 I'm pretty sure most people who love Morrowind, like myself, know that most Skyrim fans wouldn't like it. It just sucks to know that the company you loved for making a game that formed a part of your childhood is now more likely to make Skyrim Mobile Edition with a Candycrush DLC than they are to ever revisit the things about Morrowind that made it so special.
@@andrzejnadgirl2029 I'm aware. If it would make $$$$ Todd would have done it.
I don't think there will be a game like Morrowind again. No company is going to make a game without waypoint markers.
My ideal remastered version of Morrowind would be improved graphics, better combat mechanics, and a detailed player driven map system, with pins, notes, and pens. Probably a better way to organize and search quests too.
Maybe this is a hot take, but I actually (somewhat) disagree that their formula is outdated. I think some parts are, like the zoomed conversation camera and some of the quest design.
But I believe, overall, their formula is still fine. The problem is that they took *_out_* too much stuff from their formula instead of refining what was great about it. They gutted all the in depth RP systems that people loved, they stopped being creative and taking risks in their quest design, they pushed for more procedural generation, they all but abandoned the Radiant AI, the list goes on. The formula is only stale because they made it BORING. On top of the writing just getting worse and worse and worse.
actual hot take, i disagree, their formula for the past few games has proven to be increasingly boring due to them "improving" it according to their own words by removing more features that the previous games thrived on.
morrowind is ancient af, but its far more immersive then skyrim when it comes to rpg mechanics.
@@notjimpickens7928 you literally just agreed with me 😭
This is probably another hot take but I actually kind of like being drained by Big Daddy Howard 🤷♂️
There's a lot of good things, but it needs refining. The biggest problem is the writing, it's very simple and increasingly dumbed down IMO
I agree that the idea is great, but they haven't added enough to it. That's what Starfield felt to me... Like they played it was too safe and didn't expand it enough.
Haven't bought Starfield, was obvious from the first in-game trailer they released that it would be disappointing. I hope they surprise me with ES6 eventually, but it looks like I yet again get to keep my money.
ES6 will continue the skyrim trash that they keep pushing what they need to do is go back to dagger fall and morrowind if they want to truly make a master piece again
I’ve resigned myself to the fact that ES6 is gonna be a flop, I’m honestly in pain😭
Watched a youtuber that liked Starfield make a "review" on Shattered Space. He didn't go ultra in depth - was more like a friend chatting about their thoughts on a subject. But it all basically got wrapped up into a statement he made towards the end, and I'm paraphrasing here: "Bethesda listened to feedback, which is good, but they listened to people who already disliked Starfield. This DLC doesn't fix enough for them, and dilutes what those of us who liked the game enjoyed about it."
Fact is this: They should've stuck to their guns with Starfield imo. In trying to make everyone happy, they made everyone disappointed, and I don't know how exactly they're going to get Starfield out of this ditch it's currently in.
Shattered Space was fun, but I do hope they lean back into the large scale of the game and continue to add to the proc gen/POIs and existing game systems.
They didnt listen to feedback bcs its the same garbage as the main game.
they didnt listen at all lil bro, thats the problem
@@iseru-q2m It's not the same as the main game, which is why people who actually liked the main game don't like the DLC either. You're only listening to the side that already disliked Starfield in the first place. I've listened to both sides. They tried to appease everyone and thus appeased no one. That's why both sides aren't happy right now. Don't just listen to one side of the conversation.
Fallout 4 base game is great, not a good fallout game with its lack of choice, but what a fun game
Still streaming FO4 all the time. 😇
That's exactly what I was trying to put my finger on with Fallout 4. I really dislike the story and quest design, but it is undeniably fun. It has the best combat of any fallout by far, and the crafting still knocks my pants off sometimes. We really need Fallout New Vegas, but you get Fallout 4 style gunplay and and overhauled crafting system. But then again, might as well as ask for a remaster with all the cut content put back in XD
@@playwars3037 Give Fallout: London a shot.
Bethesda games are boring, ubisoft games are boring, blizzard games are boring
@@rubisco5997 sounds like you think gaming is boring. =(
@@Nexx1414 thank God there are other studios huh
@@Nexx1414 there are other companies than that?
There's never been a better time to play your backlog, or try some indie stuff
@@Nexx1414 that's an incredibly small and corporate part of gaming.
Value is also related to the other things you could purchase at the same time. There are more and more options, and smaller developers delivering better products with fewer bugs for lower prices...
I don't see $3 of value here, because no matter what is in it the result is the same. We get to float around and bop into lights until they swirl and we get a useless power so late in the game that we don't need it. Our settlements are meaningless dumps of resources that produce nothing we couldn't get easier at a shop or just by mining for a couple of minutes. The cities are bland and tiny, there are no MECHS, giant FLEET SPACE BATTLES or XENO-SWARMS despite showing us a slideshow involving all three. Nothing matters in the game, you just reset and walk around a bunch again and again through their uninspired story that might have gotten attention 20 years ago.
Unpopular opinion time - just because Todd Howard is a walking meme, doesn't mean he's a good director at BGS. He is so delusional and out of touch with the expectations and standards of games in today's climate.
one of my favorite moments in Skyrim was traveling to windhelm on foot, getting lost, running from a dragon, encountering a dwarven ruin I was too weak to enter, but could loot the outside, finally reaching windhelm was it was snowing, went under the bridge to see if anything to loot, and heard a dragon in the distance, and saw it circling over the lumber yard it was just so cool, really had nothing like that in starfield, no great moment of awe, of wonder.
Thousands of tiny bubbles connected together by loading screens? It's almost as though space had been shattered, or something.
Emil wasn't involved in Far Harbor, but he was involved in Shattered Space. Hm. Wonder what the problem is?
the fact ES6 is still going to be on this game game engine means its already over. theres no way
Idk, modded Skyrim has nice graphics and combat on the same engine XD
@@olgagaming5544graphics dont matter when the engine is literally breaking apart due to the "patches", fallout 76 is a good example of what hapoens when bethesda gets too comfy with their engine and doesnt try atleast patching up some of the holes in their previous patches, since they arent good at fixing anything according to modders who make bug fix mods on nexus and moddb
@@olgagaming5544 the fact that the game needs to be modded to be decent just validates the OPs point even more
@@olgagaming5544 ... If they have to rely on modders to fix their 25 year old engine, perhaps you're not making quite the point you think you are...
@@Boomer04888they don't have a 25 year old engine though.....so I guess neither are you? XD
changing the game engine will not change the end result for BGS. its the design philosophy of the company that is still stuck in the past and the horrible writing.
I don't think *anyone* wants Bethesda to fail; If you are a fan of the Bethesda IP's we very much want them to succeed. However, with release after release being either bad or mid at best, frustration is definitely setting in. Especially when we try to offer constructive criticism and they seem completely tone-deaf to it.
For me its the lack of self awareness and unwilling to learn from their mistakes. Just listen to Todd and Emil. They seem unable to listen to the fans. They think they're Midas, but ever since F4, everything they touch turns to shit. I'd prefer Microsoft to sack Emil and relegate Todd to a counseling position, and hire a guy like Tim Cain to put Fallout back on track. Even better: hire CDPR to develop the next Fallout game. Im done with Bethesda.
lol, CDPR has dove down the DEI hole, and most of the people who made witcher 3 are gone. I wouldn't trust them with shit.
They need Joshua Sawyer and Chris Avellone and all the other writers from NV
Feels good not having played Starfield
Bethesda's been crappy for going on 20 years. How are people only just now catching on to that?
Remember, for the price of shattered space you could buy 6 copies of Bejeweled 3 for you and the homies, which is probably a better idea since Bejeweled 3 is HEAT!
The problem of Starfield's expansion is that it should have been day one content and the whole "open star system" concept was essentially not only a wasted endeavor but a poorly pursued one. They should have just hand crafted planets from the start, jam pack it with encounters and then have some auxiliary "randomness planets" for exploration.
Starfield wasn't worth the time to click the links for the free Gamepass I had that month.
The reason why is always going to come back to Emil Pagliarulo. As long as he's still at Bethesda, we will still keep getting this garbage.
Would not have predicted a Buffet-relaying-Graham quote "price is what you pay, value is what you get" in the intro here.
But definitely germane. Also appreciate the inflation-adjusted references to prior DLC to make the price point. Well done.
In Bethesda games there are always two main characters: the player and the map. This ti,e around they didn't play to their strengths but their weaknesses. Two mandates I believe killed starfield: The 1000 PLANETS and the NG+ Twist. Still can't believe they nuked the main quest which is essentially a fetch quest to follow on the trend of Marvel multiverses.
modding is what is keeping Starfield alive. Without it, Starfield is on life support.
Star wars lore oddly has an answer to this exploration problem. In star wars planets are connected by hyper space lanes. In these lanes you can go into hyper space and safely make travel faster. They should try a system like this to guide initial exploration and create a bed rock of world building and exploration.
How can you enjoy your day when you share it with everyone? Time is a private thing. The dragon hides it from us all, parceling it out in dribs and drabs. Save your time. Save your time. I keep mine locked up tight. Where no one can find it. Not even Him.
I think Starfield should be accepted for what it is: An experimental passion project courtesy of our old friend Todd Howard and his team. They tried something new and I respect them for that. I don’t think we’ll be seeing a sequel to this game anytime soon, if ever, which might be for the best.
The problem is the rest of the context you left out. They charged 60 dollars for it, and 30 for this expansion. And for the last year, they've been saying it's the best game ever, it's everybody elses' fault if they don't like it, and even publicly shamed random customers for sharing negative feedback. If that earns your respect, I guess your respect isn't worth much.
Personally, I'm pretty disgusted by their behavior and they've lost most of what little respect I had left for them after 15 different Skyrim releases and the FO76 debacle.
Except it's a literal $70 product and Bethesda is using their horrible development cycles wasting time on a game a lot of people don't like/are bored by. Starfield would be less irritating if Bethesda's IPs were managed better
You hit the nail on the head with the discontiguous nature of Starfield. I still remember first playing Morrowind and being amazed by the expansive world, and even though Fallout 4 lost a lot of the RPG elements it still had what I call a "Bethesda World." You don't want to fast travel because there's so much cool stuff you can find in between. It can be an expansive dungeon, or just a dead guy beheaded in a bathtub surrounded by mannequins holding machetes. Starfield has no "Between," and that's what hurts it most for me. You can't just see something, turn right, and you're in a whole new unexpected adventure. It removes the sense of discovery that was one of their earlier games' greatest strengths.
How does Bethesda's dev team grow from 100 to 500 and then the number of hand crafted experiences declines? The game is the equivalent of 3 bigger cities in Skyrim without any of the dungeons in the wild. The expansion added no new dungeon patterns to planets? Incredible.
Brothers, do not preorder Elder Scrolls 6. The Bethesda we knew is long gone. The talent that brought us Morrowind through Skyrim is either gone or consumed by the corporate machine. Look to small Dev companies to find where that passion went.
I still can't believe they looked at the pre-Morrowind games and went "Oh, we should definitely make procgen maps again! People LOVE that shit".
In this recent wake of A.I. and future technologies, I think it's completely fair to say, that Starfield, pehaps among others, poses a rather important question;
IS, there room within human civilization, to continue entertaining a sense of Mystery, Curiosity, Adventure, Interest, Exploration, and overall a personally held chase for answer? With all our looming possibilities, can we remain respecting personal goal, and excitement for whatever in life, is around the corner?
I say that this game certainly stands for this, in such long-standing light of what has so commonly remained the experience of Elder Scrolls. Can a historical fantasy setting's focus of loose logics and unrefined scope of tangible travels and length of land, even truly exist in a scifi setting?
The Formula is fine, the writing is boring.
The Characters are boring, the Companions are boring, the romance options are boring, the NPCs are milk toast fetch quest givers, the enemies are most of the time the same boring guys with guns over and over... the world/universe building wasn't even there for Starfield.
They talk about Mechs, show us mechs, we don't get to play with Mechs, we don't get to fight Mechs, they dangle Capital Ships in front of us, we don't get to fly that, the Starborn ships, don't even have a bed or a toilet, by the time you finally get one of those your own Ship is fully decked out and ten times better and you can't customize the Starborn Ship, it isn't explained who build those or where they come from or why you even get one... every single System in Starfield feels unfinished, as if they just put a base idea out there as minimum viable product and hope for Modders to do something worthwhile with it. ...which they probably would, if at least the world was interesting and full enough of content to put in the work for it.
How cool of a perk would it be to get mech schematics by getting approval by all the major factions, now that we have the Va'ruun? That was my hope. Another trip into a deeper part of the archives to get the plans and being able to deploy it onto planets as a follower/pilot. Make it cost a lot of materials for upgrades and only can be built in a base so they have SOME use instead of being an afterthought leftover from F4.
There's like 3 enemy types that 99% of the entire game revolves around. Crimson, Ecliptics, and the occasional Zealots. I have killed more pirates from each of those factions than there are citizens in New Atlantis, like 50 times over. That's not saying much because they made New Atlantis to look like there's at most, 100 people living there.
I'm not sure if milk toast or milquetoast fits better. They kind of are like soggy bread.
Bethesda sitting there looking at the reviews like damn, maybe we do suck
Bethesda lost their spark long, long ago. The last game they put out that was truly great was Morrowind. You had a world that was complete, didn't use level scaling exclusively, had hidden legendary items and tons of hidden items in general, you could just FIND amazing game changing stuff.
Then they put out real honest to god expansions, not dlc's.
Oblivion was decent but was definitely the point that their downfall started.
Looked at apathy real quick and sprinted to whatever is beyond that. I didn't even realize this came out.
Shivering Isles was like a whole new game though, it was massive.
On the topic of 'natural space' between points of interest, it is very unfortunate that Bethesda didn't allow for ships to manually land/leave planets or even fly within the atmosphere and that kills immersion. If No Man's Sky had used loading screens for landing and taking off from planets, it would not have fared as well after the successful comeback (imo).
honestly I think it's less that their formula doesn't work anymore and more that they don't even know how to follow it anymore
Outer Worlds' had a similar problem, where it had bubbles of open environments, loosely held together by space travel. Made exploring kinda boring.
It turns out when the game is mid, players want something to improve the core experience, not "here's a 30 dollar side theme park while the game is still in a miserable state".
I thought it was clear since no mans sky that you probably shouldn't go interplanetary.
Bethesda was waiting for the modders to give it life.
I think this was an unwinnable situation because the DLC is actually pretty good. Best content in the game by far. Best quests, best city, best locale outside the city. Shattered Space actually delivered what it promised.
The problem is that Shattered Space is in Starfield, and entirely self contained, when Starfield needs ... a lot of help in the core game to put it lightly.
The problem is that Bethesda hasn't really made a different game since Skyrim. Everything is Skyrim with a different paint job. They may add a mechanic, or change the story to be a different setting, but the BONES of the game are all Skyrim-coded. The minimap feature is basically a copy/paste, the waypoint system, fast travel points - it's all the same stuff.
You can't just keep making the same game over and over and expect people to just keep buying it for increasing prices. They had a chance to do something REALLY amazing with Starfield, to give us a space sim with modular ships and great space combat, but everything felt like it was tacked onto a Skyrim graphics mod that was made 10 years ago.
Suits looking for money printing IPs is killing creativity in games. Everybody wants that infinite money glitch game instead of just making a good game.
Starfield would have been soooo much better if it wasn't just a "teleport to here" simulator.
Starfield is more akin to No Man's Sky, they over promised, under delivered, and left us with a hollow shell of a game.
The biggest difference is that Bethesda ain't likely to actually fix the game in the way that No Man's Sky was fixed.
At this point I feel hesitant to hope for a change in direction, just look at Ubisoft. They would rather watch it all burn than admit there is a problem.
"Highlighting their weaknesses while sabotaging their strengths".
Bethesda is casting a very dark cloud over Elder Scrolls 6 with this behavior.
_Fallout 76, Starfield,_ paid mods, unnecessary updates breaking things... for me, _The Elder Scrolls VI_ has gone from "preorder" to "wait for reviews and maybe a sale".
The fact that after a dlc launch that Starfield has half the amount of people playing it compared to Skyrim a 10+ old year game shows how big of a flop it is.
We, as a fan base, need to come to terms with the fact that the team who created Morrowind was gone by the time it shipped. Bethesda ran on the inertia of that team but have thus far had no new infusion of RPG thought nor game mechanic innovation since Oblivion when they got rid of character skill and became an action adventure studio.
Todd's design philosophy of reducing friction for the player is destroying their games
I'm utterly addicted to starfield right now. Imo it's their best game by a longshot. The factions quests are more engrossing than any previous questlines and the universe is massive. I see no issues. Has my attention over Metaphor which I'm bouncing between on quick resume. There's 20 million people who love it. The small percentage who don't seem to all make their living with TH-cam or they only own a PlayStation. Strange.
its not that bethesda CANT build games people love, its that they WONT, that takes too much money you have to make the devs actually enjoy being there and flourish and have time to do what they need to do
I just checked and I managed 48.7 hours on Starfield before giving up in utter boredom. Even though I own it, I won't be re-installing it to play Shattered Space.
I got Starfield free with a GPU I purchased, and I still don't feel like I got my money's worth.
Imagine if “base” Starfield was only in one galaxy. and then dlc took place on small parts near it. the best part is exploration.. almost nobody wants a game that’s mostly procedurally generated
One thing that's impressive with Bethesda, is how their games consistently feel outdated in every way. Daggerfall was truly the last innovative game they released. I love Morrowind, but if you compare it to the games that released the same year, it feels so old and outdated in comparison.
It's like they're in a cave, trying to build a rocket, but nobody is anywhere close enough to be make up for the lack of resources with skill.
Meanwhile outside the cave, right across the street is every other normal big game developer making games don't instantly feel outdated.
The only positive "innovation" they've had in recent games that I can think of, is the ship builder in Starfield was okay despite its many lacking QoL aspects, other than that we're basically back to Daggerfall.
I'm convinced that the biggest reason they haven't crashed earlier, is because there isn't enough competition in the market for the itch that Bethesda games normally try to scratch.
Starfield tries poorly to be No Man's Sky, and in doing so, neglects most things people liked about previous Bethesda games.
My question: How many Big Macs could you buy in the year of Oblivion’s release, with the money it costed to by Oblivion. Compare that to the number of Big Macs you could buy today for the cost of Starfield on release.
The old formula is fine the problem is they do not have any idea how to add or innovate on it.
Scale isnt the problem now days. In fact, in some cases, the "scale" needs to be brought back down to reasonabe levels.
Let me add this in, I bought the expansion pass for fallout 4 in 2016 for $40. I got two pretty good DLCs and an amazing DLC in nuka world, automatron, and far harbor. Harbor. We got some stuff packs in all of the workshops. Every one of those DLCs was better value than shattered space...
If Shattered Space never existed, nothing of value would be lost.
That's how much value it has.
$30 lmao.
I knew Bethesda was finished when I played Fallout4
I figured this out with Fallout 3, man.
What the remake of Dead Space (and other large budget huge team remasters) proves is that highly leveraged AAA game development is piss poor at crafting a new story arc or game and is pretty good at taking an already crafted story / game and remastering it. You don't get quality from numbers. It comes from specific, unique and highly paid members of society. As it always has.
I've been saying for years that Todd is not a game designer. He's a marketing guy. Look at what they did to fallout, compare fallout 1 and 2 to Fallout 3 and the difference in writing and worldbuilding is NIGHT AND DAY. And its only gotten worse with time, mechanics have been simplified instead of evolving and fallout 4 became a game where people dont even remember the main quest.
It's kind of sad when I initially saw Starfield and my only hope is that the mods would make it a good game. Skyrim is a good open world game, but it has too much open and not enough world.
I honestly just wanted to see modders turn Starfield into Trials in Tainted Space
Got starfield as a gift with my graphics card so i played it and got near the end of the campaign but never finished it. I just got, bored. And for a bethesda game that was disheartening. My faith in the dlc was low so waited to see what others said. Seeing where it stands it is an easy pass
$30 used to get you a Bethesda season pass.
#1. This story is not compelling. It is dull. The UNC questline was better than the main story. I think it was a mistake to make such a massive space game and not at least have hints of other sentient alien species.
All of the technical issues and bland gameplay are bad, but honestly I think the biggest issue with Starfield is how violently uninteresting the story and lore are.
I put in 200 hours and enjoyed my time in it. The Inon Zur score is fantastic (as always), I love that Tuvok and Major Kira from Star Trek are my parents, and some of the environments are genuinely great. I even liked the main campaign, and I’d rank a couple of the quests among the best they’ve ever done, but unlike past BGS games I’ve felt no desire to return. It just doesn’t have the long term hook that keeps me coming back to Elder Scrolls and Fallout. They failed to create a new universe compelling enough for the majority of players and I find it hard to believe they’ll ever devote the level of resources needed to reinvent it on a level like current NMS and Phantom Liberty, which was a nearly 3 year $100 million overhaul. From here I’d expect BGS to be all hands on deck for ES6.
And the Scrolls have foretold, of new games that feel old,
That when Creation fails and screens always load!
Bethesda, once the king of games, flame now frost-bound,
With no warmth to bring life to the world!
For less than the price of Shattered Field you can get 9 Sols, one of the best indie games this year.
Betheseda took the ostrich burry head myth approach
I really wish we could see the details of the contract Bethesda signed to use the Gamebryo Engine for Morrowind back in the day... because quite frankly their obsession with this engine is just... getting weird at this point.