What I Want From The Elder Scrolls 6 Following Starfield's Reception
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 ส.ค. 2024
- Talking about some overall directions I'd like to see The Elder Scrolls 6 taken following the negative reception of Starfield.
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#gaming #gamereviews #starfield #tes6 #theelderscrolls #bethesda
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One quality of Skyrim that helped propel it onto multiple generations of hardware is that the game is really cozy. The setting is a large part of that: cold, Nordic landscapes punctuated with quaint towns and not terribly difficult underground dungeons. There's just something about wandering around the snowy, overcast landscape and then ducking into a cabin or lodge and seeing the warm glow of a fireplace and hearing a bard playing, or slipping underground into a spooky dungeon and solving some puzzle and killing a few monsters - it all sets a great mood and atmosphere.
Yeah agree. Ambient Soundtrack is everything. Skyrim, The Witcher 3, Outer Wilds, Journey. All have this in common.
Totally agree, as someone who lives in a hot dry country I can't get enough of Skyrims alpine landscapes and cold weather. For me, it's where high fantasy lives..
The world also has some sort of coherence in Skyrim. For example, you can picture yourself a mental map of the place you are in, locating it according to nearby settlements and dungeons, and you can appreciate the environmental storytelling. This process populates the map and makes each location somewhat related to each other, which makes Skyrim's locations feel alive. It is impossible to replicate this feeling with procedural generation, because it prevents you from understanding why this location is there, why it matters or the intent behind its placement, since all of it is drowned in an ocean of randomness. Starfield's locations ultimately feel irrelevant and unimportant.
@@SuperGeek83000 I agree. I was initially excited about the procedural generation, but my god was the pool to pull from tiny. I don’t think I ever saw more than maybe 5/6 geological sites or 8/9 abandoned places.
Plus random encounters were very strange, I only saw about 6 in orbit random encounters before they began to loop and only one on a planet.
What were they thinking? I’d have been happy to sack off the generated locations and just give interesting world events like in skyrim, or fallout 4. For all its flaws Fallout 4 for me had the best detailed environmental story telling and random encounters. I wish they had specced into those more for the procedural stuff than the dungeons.
Yeah, come fall/winter I fire it up on occasion
I'd like longer well written quest chains. The guilds in skyrim felt like 5 or so quests then you were in charge.
There's a reason the Oblivion Dark Brotherhood questline is as well-liked as it is. It's a long questline with various approaches per mission, it gets you invested in the NPCs and the twist is well executed. I understand they cannot hit oil every time, but it would seem they're not even trying to recreate the magic.
A different example would be The Witcher. It had plenty of kind-of-filler quests, but they were interspersed with high quality questlines. It's fine to have some minor/small quests, but they need to make sure to have several truly bespoke quests.
Some are really bad, like the college. The way I play the thieves guild it works really well. You know how as you do more radiant jobs it makes the Thieves guild better? You get little statues, then you unlock stalls and shop and you get the special assignments? Well they should have made us do that before any of the storyline missions, the. It really does seem like the Guild is back on its feet. If you just do the storyline people start acting like the Guild is now suddenly rolling in gold. You’re still sitting in the squalid, dark cistern then they open the doors to an empty vault and you’re like…. Yeah.. ok? So what? But if you build up the guild to its final level, it’s well lit, it’s busier there are stores set up, there are gold reward artefacts dotted about. So when the vault opens ‘oh shit!’ There’s no gold it’s all gone mercer has stolen everything! > payoff.
@@louieberg2942that twist in the Dark Brotherhood questline is really only well executed if you never read any of the notes "Lucien" leaves you.
If you do, the twist is painfully obvious and you can do nothing but play along like a good drone without any thoughts in your head. 🤖
But the open-ended assassinations are good fun, so it still rises to the top for embracing the sandbox nature of the game.
It's not at all well written though, since it only works beause you have no ability to question your increasingly unhinged and ranting orders or speak to Lucien, or anyone else, about them. 😂
meanwhile in eso it feels way more natural and you work towards bettering each guild and your loyalty is rewarded. Each mission has you work hard and sometimes there's twists or betrayals that make it all feel believable
Sanguine my brother…
Agree completely Bethesda games were about getting lost in a lived in world and wondering whats over the next hill and discovering more about the world by going there. Knowing that everywhere isn’t important to the world and is randomly generated made starfield feel smaller than Morrowind when it certainly wasn’t.
I was a wee lass when Daggerfall came out, and I still think Daggerfall and Morrowind are MILES better than everything Bethesda has made since, and part of it is that sense of getting lost and discovering weird and wonderful things as you go, and both games still feel (and in Daggerfall's case, literally IS) huge! When Daggerfall Unity came out, it was a combination of a nostalgia trip and "wow this is what this game could've been if it was made a dozen or so years later", and I still think the most winning formula Bethesda could possibly hit on is going back to Daggerfall's ambitions but with today's technology.
I can't but find the "huge vast areas to walk around in between destinations" to be nothing but a gimmick.
I'm skeptical on the idea that it would be beneficial, as I think more people would just complain about the game being bloated or needlessly big for the sakes of forcing people to spend more time playing.
As for starfield, a core issue I had with it is that. Exploration is limited to the cities and some hand crafted locations.
Everything else felt meaningless, unlike the 4 bandit camps and 2 dungeons you might come across while walking down the road in Skyrim in a timespan of a couple hours. It simply didn't feel like bethesda's exploration loop I've grown to love.
@@Verchiel_I think the real problem was the decision not to have a alien sentients.
These worlds lack defining character generation required for any truly groundbreaking radiant AI system, they could have tried with humans only but then interconnectedness of the galaxy comes into play, however they could have made an alien race generator with low % chance that then allows that races for subsequent NG+ and had these worlds create their own stories... But instead they just left a truly hollow narrative for anything not handcrafted.
@@YouTubdotCub Have you heard of Wayward Realms? I have doubts that it will ever release, or if it does that it will make good on everything it promises, but if you're a Daggerfall fan it's definitely worth keeping an eye on.
@@Pebphiz been following it basically since it was first announced
What I would like - as a 56 year old lifelong gamer...
Is for it to come out before I die.
Same here unfortunately I'm 65
@@stevenwoodward5923im sure it will come quicker than what people expect, Bethesda is bigger than ever so maybe in 4 years we get it
@@ni9274 I like your optimism, believing that I will be still playing at 70 years old.
I don't really care - if it's just gonna be another disappointment, I don't mind waiting forever.
11-11-2033
There are some people who are excitedly predicting that ES6 would cover all of Tamriel, including ships sailing the ocean. "Because Starfield proved it's possible!" This is another thing that I truly hope does not happen. Bigger is not guaranteed to be better. Quality over quantity.
My prediction is that it will take place in Akavir.
@@TheMusicolophileit’s in High Rock
@@Sevren_ All of the rumours and hints point to Hammerfell for sure and maybe also High Rock, but Hammerfell is almost granted. Having both can be cool in order to have more variety (even if i'd prefer them to just focus on one race and culture) and also having the whole Iliac Bay because i'm quite sure ES6 will be heavily pirates focused
I wouldn't mind the shores to the south from Hammerfell, Valenwood, Vulkhel Guard, even Elsweyr. But please no random generation, no one wants it
@@TheMusicolophile Elder Scrolls VI: Return to Skyrim
I especially loved how satisfying (and consequential) it was in Morrowind to tinker with your race, specialization, favored attributes, major/minor skills, and sign during character creation.
Morrowind was my first ES game and one of my first RPG's. I was blown away by the first person camera and immersion. The one thing I always said about that game was the the world was massive and you could wander in any direction and find something interesting.
Morrowind also had no quest markers, so wandering was really that. And an incredible alien world design with warring house politics and even contested religious dogma way beyond the generic fantasy of Skyrim.
@@DogAfraidOfUmbrellas That is all true. I often miss the navigation in that game. It was cool to actually follow directions according to signs and landmarks. I don't think they'll ever be able to design worlds like that again, though.
@@DogAfraidOfUmbrellas I liked the fact that it had no quest markers it really made you pay attention and read the quests rather than just running to a arrow on the map.
I’m Starfield you can wander in any direction and find nothing.
@@misanthropicattackhelicopt4148 I just don't understand why they couldn't at least offer the option to turn off all quest markers so we could get that feeling of exploration again.
When adding depth back to their RPG systems and interaction back to their worlds, I want them to look back at fondly remembered classics that aren't just their own. A big problem with Bethesda games is that they're treated almost as their own genre bubble and compared against themselves. Why not look back at Wizardry 8? Incredible mix of world and mechanics there that they can learn from, and not too far a stone's throw from Morrowind.
Todd cited Ultima as a big inspiration for their earlier games. It'd be interesting to see them take inspiration from older games. They already took a good first step by admitting to themselves that Oblivion did some things better. I love Starfield, but here's hoping the success of Baldur's Gate 3 really wakes them up.
@@Pmurder3 I think something a little more indepth than choose Health Stamina or magic would be nice
New Vegas is another game they should take way more inspirational from
Really fair and constructive. Oblivion's AI mess had so many memorable moments that got people talking, even if it sometimes broke the game.
It's not just the exploration in Starfield which I found pointless, the building serves no real purpose either. In Fallout 4 the outposts do make sense, they are tied to the story and once you get your trade networks going they add to the population of the world, like, you see your traders wandering about, your outposts grow in population and so forth, it gives the illusion that the Commonwealth is moving forward. Plus the Minutemen missions for the settlements are rewarding, you can find decent loot, in Starfield my loadout hardly changed after completing the story because I wasn't finding anything substantially better than the gear I finished the main plot arc with.
Yeah, as much as I get tired of personally rebuilding the Commonwealth plank by plank once you get settlements up and running they are pretty satisfying, and even on a non- Minuteman playthrough you can still build a badass base for yourself. Starfield meanwhile gives you a ship that fulfills all the crafting/storage roles anyway and building settlements adds nothing to the overall experience, hence pointless.
The other point that doesn't really work for me is becoming Starborn. In Fallout and especially Elder Scrolls I'd use the next playthrough to create a different character and experience the game with different skills. For example a dagger based assassin, or a combat archer that doesn't spec into stealth, or an illusion mage. And then each of those self-made classes can spec out in ways that compliment the base playstyle. Assassin can take Illusion to become a truly invisible and untouchable agent of death. Archer could master conjuration and go into combat with a pair of storm elementals on the frontline. Illusion works great with Conjuration too, frenzy the enemy hideout and send a Dremora Lord in to clean up. Or the same Illusionist goes down a peaceful route with pacification and stealth, just walks through the game enjoying the scenery and the npc interactions that you don't normally get to see.
In some ways Skyrim is too broad because you can complete just about any quest with any playstyle regardless of whether that makes sense, but at the same time there are almost endless ways to enjoy the game and each character can feel very different from the last. Meanwhile Starfield has a lot less variety in character builds and then expects you to do multiple playthroughs on the same character with the same build.
I think a large part of the NPC issue is the pressure they faced with city populations. A common complaint about bethesda games is that their cities are way to small and feature a way to low population. They tried to resolve this with the procedural NPCs (which as a result cant feature a radiant ai), but as a consequence, the main npcs became static.
I would much rather smaller cities where everything matters vs large cities where only a very few people/locations matter.
@@inscription8099One reason i want to see Bully 2 is to see what can be done with NPCs and entering Buildings on small scale. In case of TES6 i do think smaller towns even with less NPCs would be better cyberpunk And Strafield Are good exsamples of why havimg to many NPCs can be a bad thing.
Because bethesda writing is so bland that players can't tell the difference between a procedurally generated NPC and a main character.
@John-996 agree 👍. I can always use my imagination to imagine whiterun or solitude as bigger cities. It's easier than suspending my disbelief that all these static, generic npcs walking to nowhere add anything to game.
I don't think that I entirely agree. I don't see the the conclusion that procedural NPCs result in bad main NPCs. Look at Cyberpunk for an example. BG3 also has background NPCs. IMHO Bethesda's main NPCs are bad simply because the writing is bad. They told a bad story, full stop.
I wish Bethesda had looked at other open world games to get ideas from on how to evolve their formula. Kingdom Come Deliverance is kind of what I was hoping what modern day Bethesda games would be like, just with more fantasy elements and additional mechanics.
And normal saves
KCD is basically just Skyrim though
@@destroyermaker i feel like if i look at your steam library i'm gonna see 1000+ hours of mordhau.
@@HessenUK "just RDR2" is a crazy thing to say. Bethesda has money but no devs and technology to make a game like that and they are not interested on expanding their studio sadly
I agree. Or how about combine thier formula for oblivion skyrim and fallout 3 and make a bigger better game. What a 💭
Elder Scrolls 6 is the one game i desperately want to be good. Skyrim is my favourite game of all time and there hasnt been a bad entry into the main series yet.
I hope after taking all this time away from ES6 to make Starfield that they can at least use lessons learned to make ES6 better? I didn't think Starfield was awful, definitely flawed and can be fixed up with DLC and patches, but ES6 needs to be better at launch than Starfield.
@@Wft-bu5zcAt the minimum, I want Bethesda to scale down their ambition (quality over quantity) and refine their core elements, especially melee combat and NPCs. Directional melee combat would mix things up. For the NPCs, I'd be happy with more animation variety, especially the eyes and upper body, and perhaps a less stilted camera during dialogue.
While you guys are in imagination land say hi to butters for me will ya
A very big "yet"
TESVI will be just fine. Skyrim showed that so long as people have the illusion of choice, consequences don't matter, story doesn't really matter, only exploration. Throw in a few buildings here and there, call them cities, make the landscapes absolutely gorgeous so you don't need to add any real depth, throw in some nice fancy magic animations and combat animations and people will absolutely love TES VI. Skyrim showed us you don't really have to try that hard to make a compelling game.
I very much appreciate both your attitude and approach. Thanks.
A well-reasoned piece. I like how you see some good progress in Starfield to Bethesda’s approach but also comment on the things that didn’t work. I hope they can keep on the track and not just let the criticism dictate their future approach.
One thing I liked about Starfield was how levels in different perk areas required a task or feat to be achieved in order to unlock their progress. Masterful idea.
I think if they drop the proc gen stuff and focus on a good world and combat, it will bring a lot of people back. If they go further with roleplay and story it could bring it to that next level of acclaim.
They would have to rewrite the engine it obsolete now. I suspect they are spending more time bug fixing that crappy engine then in would require to build a new one. And I doubt they will go any deeper in roleplaying as they have been going for that mythical unicorn "wider audience".
@@daznis idk why they couldn't update engines. Every other studio has been making open world games for 10 plus years with different engines
@@asddap not saying that's what they will do, I'm not even the biggest roleplay guy myself, but that's what they SHOULD do if they want good press
An interesting idea I had for future Bethesda games is, if they're not willing to abandon proc-gen entirely, they could use it for dungeons instead of the overworld map. So, the normal map would remain static and so would some of the important dungeons, but many others would be randomized in order to add variety and not overwhelm the player with large scale procedural content, but rather something that could supplement the player's adventures instead of dominating it.
That's the neat part - they won't.
By the time Skyrim 6, Skyrim 2, Tes6 (pick your favourite /s) releases (it probablty will be early or mid 30s), the AI used in gaming will be 10 times as better as it is now. We had more progress in AI the last year than we had the last 10 years. And considering AI are learning on their own - you won't believe how good AI will become. So with that Bethesda will probably write quests, especially radiant quests, with AI, make locations with AI, make dialogue with AI and voice it with AI.
If you think otherwise - you're just delusional. In such games the AI will be the next "Thing". I won't be surprised if future RPGs will have a REAL radiant quest with REAL radiant npcs, stories and dialogues. A huge interconnected system where npcs react to the players, the world, the main and side quests and so on.
So forget about dropping procedural generation - most of Bethesda games will be procedurally generated very soon.
My favourite part of skyrim was for the 1st time i played a game where i can interact with simple items like forks and plates,it was just so cool it made it feel real,
Couldn't agree more, Mort. Especially in a post Baldur's Gate 3 world I hope companies see that there's a huge market for deep and expensive RPGs. Besides that customers should expect game devs to build upon and improve all their best systems. I've seen a lot of people say that it's unfair to compare a new IP to older beth games, which is wild to me.
The thing is, they have a blueprint. They can simply take the things that fans love most from the past 3 Elder Scrolls games, update the graphics and combat and they will make most people happy and release a good game.
Which is basically what you said in this video.
Hopefully they will actually do the right thing this time.
Fr just take all the things that worked from the previous games, and leave all the things that didn’t work
Exactly they don't need to reinvent the wheel. Just give us an improved Skyrim set in a different province and most people would be absolutely fine
Its clear thought that they have no interest in doing that: to BGS's credit, they're still trying to break the mold, rather than make a perfect but predictable game as you've described. For example Fallout 4, two new things they tried there: a protagonist that tried to balance between fully-fledged character (Geralt, Arthur Morgan) and voiceless avatar (almost every RPG ever), and the settlement system. People are split on these elements: they could have completely skipped both of them and thus had more hard-drive space to focus on fleshing out the minutemen quest or whatever, but they were experimenting. Morrowind totally broke the mold, radiant AI with oblivion, mixing handcrafted with procedural generation in Starfield. I appreciate that they try new things, though it at times is ill-advised in hindsight.
The combat sucks, it's a contest of who brought the most potions to chug, there's a reason many people went stealth archer, you don't see the cracks in the melee combat that way.
Bethesda is just the western Gamefreak, they'll keep releasing shit, and the audience will keep eating it up.
I like Bethesda, I just wish they focused on their core audience of old school RPGs. I loathe the wider audience crap
You review is fair. I didn't like starfield, not because it's a bad game, it's just not a cheap game and I'm poor, from a poor country, it costs me a lot to buy a game and when I buy a game and it's "meh", it's bad for me, every game is an investment which is why pirating is still a thing in the world.
The problem with Starfield is the things NPCs asks you to do would only make sense in a medieval setting. Those "talk to [person]" quests where you travel to another planet, talk to [person], then travel back to the 1st planet, would only make sense in a future where phones somehow don't exist. Also, less load screens would be good.
Bethesda needs to STOP believing bigger is better.
It's such a treat when you watch a video that matches your own perspective completely. I honestly think radiant ai is necessary for Elder Scrolls games as it really rounds out the gameplay for the thieves guild & dark brotherhood factions. Without radiant ai, working for those guilds would just feel lackluster. Although I'm happy that Bethesda seems interested in bringing back some rpg systems, I really wish they would bring back stat allocation. I don't understand why so many rpgs devs think people can't handle that aspect of character building.
I've seen a few video that says Skyrim was what ruined Bethesda, and I kinda agree with it. Skyrim represents streamlining as it was a significantly streamlined version of Oblivion in most aspects. Bethesda might have thought that was why Skyrim was so successful and started streamlining more and more on their newer titles. Oblivion is still a very unique experience with ambitious systems, but I can't say that about Skyrim/ Fallout4/ Starfield.
I often wonder if it was Skyrim or Fallout 4, but I only played the first Fallout, the isometric view rpg, and it was ok but the setting never landed with me, Skyrim was a bit too streamlined and held your hand way to much for my liking but it still had a lot going for it especially the world even with it's hand holding and clunky combat the exploration of the world and all the great stuff you could stumble over made you forgive its shortcomings, Fallout 76 exposed Bethesda terribly and showed that whatever they thought they were in terms of triple A status wasn't the case and Starfield just confirmed it beyond doubt. I did enjoy Daggerfall back in the day but they probably knew it was a bit too ambitious but they nailed it with Morrowind for me, Oblivion was ok but it was the start of that streamlining process but Morrowind is still my top ES title.
Hand on heart I think Bethesda are done and I think I would like to see Microsoft give another studio the IP and see what happens, Fallout New Vegas is always talked of as the best Fallout game and it wasn't Bethesda, in fact it's interesting to see just how uncomfortable Bethesda get when New Vegas is talked about, they very rarely acknowledge it as if it's a source of embarrassment to them.
This is just the 'hardcore' position though, that which puts "RPG mechanics" above everything else, because Skyrim is "an RPG after all, right?" Except Skyrim was the game which broke the barriers between genres. It's success is a major reason that every game now is an open world game. In any event, there is no reason in theory that presentation, minute to minute gameplay, etc. shouldn't count for as much or more than RPG elements.
@@user-io6eq9gt6w I see your point and it was definitely easier to approach and play than earlier titles which went a long way towards its success but the mod community more then anything is the reason I believe it became the game it was, the mod community has always done what Bethesda couldn't or wouldn't do themselves, which is fix the games. Skyrim still has plenty of RPG mechanics but it does hold your hand way too much for me, though in fairness that's subjective, what I like in a game isn't what others will like, and it still had the handmade curated content which I loved and why I played it so much, either way I still think Bethesda are done unless they have a major change in culture, which I don't think they could do. I'd really love to see Microsoft give the IP's to another studio, everyone loves FO: New Vegas, except maybe Bethesda themselves, and their are studios out there that do what Bethesda can do but much better.
What I do know for sure that ES6 on the Creation engine isn't going to be a game I want to play and I have an embarrassingly large amount of time in the Elder Scrolls games.
All i want is the same as all the other TES i´ve played.
Start the game, escape the prison, go outside, turn the oposite direction where the main quest tells me to go and lose myself for 80 hrs until i decide that maybe its time to start the main quest.
If that happens then im good.
Oh...and drop the procedural generation all together!
There are really only 2 major changes I would like. 1. Have spell mixing/making return. 2. Change "Archers." Weaken them slightly, because archer builds are so easy and easy to default to in ES5 and make the arrows affect different areas. Slow them if you get a leg, drop the sword with the hand, crit above the neck, etc. They can even dust off the V.A.T.S. and use it in the background for recognition.
As a gamer and a bow hunter, I respectfully disagree. Yes, hunting with bows takes a lot more skill than hunting with rifles. But a good hunter can one shot an elk with a bow.
@@freeheeler09 My point is that ES5, the archer builds were simple and OP. But they were also not realistic, even for a fantasy game. There was no difference between a hoof and landing in the lung area for example.
In FO3, NV, FO4 the VATS and box allocation allowed for more realistic reactions. If they were holding a pipe you can VATS (or lucky aim) them to drop it.
A return of spears, medium armor, teleportation spells and levitation would be a good start. Going back to Morrowind roots and all.
The problem with starfield is that no system works with others, you can avoid everything without missing something extraordinary
It’s easy to say “like Morrowind/Daggerfall” but that’s obviously not going to happen. But I do think they can make a modern, broadly appealing game that’s more satisfying for their older fans. Something along these lines:
- Character building and mechanical depth on par with Oblivion. In particular, bringing back attributes (they can ditch the old level-up system and do something simpler, e.g. the way Fallout does skill points) and having far more spells, not just 1/effect/tier (Oblivion spell creation would be good and should be easy to implement but it’s not essential if there’s enough variety already)
- Keep level scaling but do it like Skyrim/Fallout 3 where overworld creatures don’t scale and scaled groups of enemies still contain lower tier enemies so you feel more powerful.
- Set it in the 4th era after Skyrim (it’s the game most people have played) and focus on a region with a distinct culture and conflicts (I think Valenwood or Hammerfell would be really good). I think the Empire and Dominion both trying to build their strength and influence for another continent-wide war is an interesting backdrop. Keep Skyrim’s tone; keep the world-saving main quest but ground it more in the local culture (like Morrowind, not just “stop some Daedric prince from destroying the world”). I’d like to see more nuance in the writing of local, Imperial and Aldmeri interests, which should provide at least 1 interesting faction choice (like Morrowind’s Great Houses) to add to the Fighters, Mages, Thieves Guilds. Oh and add an Arena… seriously why not? It’s simple and players love it.
- Most importantly, *ditch procedural content* (or at most use it for the Fighters Guild and inkeeper bounties only) and focus on the *quantity* of interesting, handcrafted content, even if it’s not super polished. Obviously being polished is better but it won’t matter if they don’t recapture what people loved about the series. I understand why people complain but I really think we’re giving Bethesda the wrong feedback by complaining so much about bugs. Is a bug-free Fallout 4 or Starfield really what people want? I don’t think so. But it’s what we’re gonna get if Bethesda listens to the community’s feedback…
I really liked Starfields art design and the character leveling felt a lot better than in other previous titles, they really nailed it. Some of the same issues from their previous games still persist somewhat with the Health spongy enemies at high levels and some of the perks are Save or Suck but it has been an improvement. However the story felt way too... safe? I do not want to say uninspired because there were some really great moments but for the life of me I cannot remember one notable quest that left me with a "wow" factor that I had to discuss with friends and get their impressions on it. I know they do not want to take a lot of risks when it comes to game development but it felt like they took too safe of an approach. I explored a few planets and had some fun with some of the prefab building but after a while it devolved into me doing the exact same routine pattern. I ended up being more in the cities than out exploring because after a certain point it was just a rush to get through the grind and try and find my way into the universe on the last meaningful run. It may be because I have been playing more of Baldur's Gate 3, Pillars of Eternity and Tyranny and have been spoiled by the great writing and world building but I really want better stories that make put the controller down and make me ponder what I just experienced.
"have been spoiled by the great writing and world building but I really want better stories that make put the controller down and make me ponder what I just experienced."
This, 100%. Nailed it.
As long as Emil is in charge of the writing, we will NEVER get anything remotely close to what you find in CRPGs.
Also, since you mentioned BG3, Pillars of Eternity and Tyranny, you should try Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous if you haven't played it yet. I just finished it last week and it was excellent. About to finish another run of BG3, after that I'm gonna try out Colony Ship: A Post-Earth RPG.
@@samvimes9510 I just do not understand why BGS can't have a team of writers like every proper RPG studio does. Larian has a team, CDPR has a team, Bioware did, like why are they relying on this one or few dudes to make it all? Quest designers don't always make for best writers, they're very different goals.
This is why Pawel Sasko being a quest director for CP2077 does not head the writing and instead leaves that for a dedicated team. It's not that he can't write, but sticking to expertise is how you get both well written games with great quest design like that.
@@RuthwikRao because having a team of writers would make too much sense, and Bethesda doesn't do things that make sense. I mean, they made Fallout 76 in the same crappy engine Fallout 4 was made in. It would have been smarter to let the ESO team at Zenimax make a Fallout game in their own engine. It wouldn't even need to be third person, since you can play ESO in first person (not that I would recommend it). Actually, speaking of ESO, the writing in that game is better than in the mainline Bethesda games (at least the parts I played). Everything in Morrowind expansion was especially good.
@@RuthwikRao I think it's because their approach is just more homegrown and quaint. Sure, they could put a huge amount of their budget into hiring hollywood screenwriters like Rockstar, but they simply aren't TRYING to make some hard-hitting, realistic, philosophical masterpiece. And they like the idea of this tight core team I guess.
Hey Mort, been following since you were only doing DOS2. Love your content. I’m so glad you’ve grown so much.
Keep up the great work homie.
Skyrim was my first TES game and I remember the first time I booted up my PS3 and I heard the theme on the title screen I was immediately hooked and just the feeling of wondering around this new world not really bothering with the quests kept me busy for my first few hours, THATS what I love about the game the most because no matter how many times I’ve played it since there are few games out there that just beat the environment and tone/vibe of Skyrim. Likewise I felt the same way about oblivion but mostly for the fact it’s pretty easy to role play and get lost in that game as well, wanting through the forest hunting game then finding a inn and sitting down for a drink and some food before renting a room for the night and venturing out agin the next day keeps it feeling fresh to me. If they can integrate all that into TES6 and take it as time to return to form they could really recapture the lightening in a bottle again
I think we might potentially see a repeat of history. Starfield is this generation's daggerfall - a game too large for its own good, filled with half-baked ideas plastered over with repetitive, procedurally generated content. And they got a similar reception for that as Starfield has received. In direct response, Bethesda scaled back their next major project, took the criticism to heart, and came out with the masterpiece that is Morrowind. Can they do that again? I think they'll try, but if they actually succeed is another matter.
Haha always love hearing you ramble, Mortym! 🤗 Thx again for all the content and have an amaaaazing day!
I'm done with them if they screw up the Oblivion remaster/remake. If Skyblivion is a far better game I'm done with them.
I think the game engine used for Starfield will be adequate for TES 6. Given that it's more focused on one world, a lot will comes down to how compelling they make this world, its characters, its quests and stories. But they do need to innovate, merely adequate isn't really enough, going forward for a game/franchise with it's legacy. Stagnation can often spell the beginning of the end. Someone here mentioned Kingdom Come Deliverance as a game they should draw inspiration from and I agree. That extra level of immersion it can provide, with the multi-branching paths that Baldurs Gate 3 can offer for its stories and characters is something that ES games/Bethesda stable sorely need and could provide them with a new lease of life.
What I want from TES VI:
- Deep lore akin to Morrowind or Oblivion Knights of the Nine
- Handcrafted map. If it has to have procedural, islands past the edge of the map or shifting sands under the desert could be okay.
- Damage types, armor types, bring back the 8 core attributes and adopt the Fallout 76 1-15 attribute range instead of the 1-100 system.
- Crafting skills are not tied to XP and don't share a perk resource with combat skills.
- Carry over and expand on NG+ from Starfield. Tied to this, turn off essential NPC flags and provide writing to allow players to live out the end of the doomed world they create before trying again in NG+.
What I hope for TES6:
- More ways to customize your build (return of attributes, more scaling, new gameplay feats from unlocking "perks")
- Combo perks (like destruction+archery for elemental arrows, or plus alteration for homing arrows; alchemy+enchanting for "permanent poison effect on weapon"; speech+illusion for debuff auras)
- More complexity, freedom and care for magic (scaling spells, more variety inside the schools, spell combos and more environmental interaction, spell perks like in Forgotten Magic mod, spell creation and proper magic weapons, like staves and scepters)
- Higher limit for conjuration minions (let's make a small army!)
- More accurate stealth system, with intuitive mechanics and proper line of sight (also spells from Illusion to create proper distractions)
- More physically accurate combat, with push-pull-fall damage (and spells!), precise hitboxes and proportional damage (head > torso > limbs)
- More dynamic combat (dodge, rolls, blinks, parrying, magical melee combat (spell shields with timed blocking mechanics, elemental hand-to-hand perks).
- More quality of life UI improvements
- Better AI and better follower system (lets make them more than just summon-like allies).
- And, last but definitely not least, MORE INTERESTING, REACTIONAL AND OVERARCHING MAIN STORY, with less fetching quests, more sides to pick, decisions that matter and change the world state around, and NPCs that we care about.
These would all be SO awesome. I really love your idea about the mixing magic schools. They could really stand to flesh out the magic from Skyrim, it was a but bland.
Dedicated kick button, too!
@@kill_repeat8491 I'd also love for them to implement a system of reserved magicka pool, like the one from Dragon Age Origins. Imagine being able to Summon how many minions you want, but each making you reserve a part of you magicka while active? The same for every other persistent on self effect, like armor and cloak spells.
Awww! Hope you have an amazing time with your son on his birthday, Mortym!! 🤗❤
I'd honestly be happy if they would just get rid of the craft/base building stuff they've been shoehorning into all their recent games and just go back to making good RPGs. They're never going to recreate Minecraft and they need to stop wasting time and resources trying to do so.
I agree with that, to me it's just like a little pet vanity project that has no real bearing on the overall story and draws attention away from it like a filler to extend the overall playthrough time.
My favourite leveling style in rpgs is Skyrim where you gain more levels when you actually do the task.
I like it in concept, but some of the levelling methods were frustrating. I hated the way to level up armor especially. Feeling like you’re permanently stuck in a clinch drill to get better at armor isn’t much fun.
@@kingleech16 at the start at the cave when you escape there is a bear and a huge rock behind him,i used sneak behind the rock,put a rubber band around the analog and walk into the rock to get my sneak skill up to 100 even before i start the game leaving the cave. Did you know about that trick? Lol
I am glad that you re-evaluated your views on Starfield since your 100% review. Your Oblivion re-visit is an awesome surprise and is well needed given how Starfield dissapointed most Bethesda fans. TES games are miles above in both immersion and meningful player freedom; seems Bethesda is put to shame by it's own past successes. As with many AAA brands, we are left wondering if they are truly the same studio or just a corporate Ship of Thesseus that holds IPs.
Being an old TES fan, I saw Bethesda lose some of its dev-magic the moment they went all-in with vacuous survival and sandbox mechanics with Fallout 4 (probably under the spell of 2010's Survival games hype) -- while not managing to ramp up stronger RPG and world mechanics. Quite the contrary: continous streamlining and drop in writing quality crept in, and are especially visible in last year's Starfield.
I personally would like to see more rambly commentary from you. Unlike you I actively disliked Starfield as in I liked virtually nothing about it. I thought the RPG system was really bad. Think about the inventory system? Never before has there been a more weighted inventory system in a Bethesda game as in you become encumbered almost instantly after picking up a few items, which you then need to ameliorate by wasting perk points on carrying capacity, which is NOT fun at all and does nothing from a gameplay perspective. As you said, exploration is boring through and through and given Bethesda's less than charitable responses to legitimate criticism, aka. you should be having fun on an empty planet because real life astronauts had fun on the moon I doubt they will seek to improve much, rather the evidence suggests they will dig in their heels all the more as in Hammerfell is supposed to be a giant empty desert, why don't you like the realism? It is on you. I know you don't like getting into the dirty aspects of gaming but Bethesda's response to paying customers was downright despicable and given all the set-backs I might not even live to see the release of ES VI at this rate as I am not young. Either way it is very sad that Eora will likely not ever become more widely known, even a huge channel such as your's could not make Eora more popular, which is a shame. The themes and world building are just incredible and I look forward to your thoughts on Avowed. P.S. Josh Sawyer DID say that if Phil Spencer gave him 120 million USD he would make POE 3. Make it happen Phil!
The funny thing is that currently, this is the best moment to bring back radiant AI since theres actually decent dialog and behavior AI out there. Bethesda can truly make something revolutionary if they want to risk it.
And that's just the problem, risk. The Bethesda that risked everything with daggerfall and Morrowind isn't the current day starfield and fallout 4 Bethesda.
I think that, for me, that's where Bethesda dropped the ball on Starfield. The whole point of 1000 planets is to explore them, and exploration fell flat, to put it mildly. At one point, I literally fell asleep while going from one PoI to another. I think that this issue led to other gameplay issues, because I couldn't get immersed enough, or "believe" enough to keep going. I logged 81 hours, but at the end of that, I felt as if I was forcing myself to play, so I walked away from it.
A really fun story for each guild and an interesting world that's all I need, those should be bulletpoints on a white board, can even focus side quests that interact with that and bam you have yourself an amazing game sir, maybe hire a comedian to help design some quests, give players a good laugh occationally
genius idea, 100% supporting that! "maybe hire a comedian to help design some quests, give players a good laugh occationally"
@jahtari what can I say, someone needs to give me a ton of money and a team that knows how to create video games, I'd make the best ones :/
Well made. I love your energy.
I want Bethesda to license the Unreal Engine v5, to hire writers, and to hire new game designers. Because their derivative game designs are so damn tired and boring at this point that I refunded Starfield after about 90 minutes of messing with it.
The problem isn’t that they used their old ways of making a game. Starfield would be such an improvement if it were like Skyrim, Oblivion or Morrowind.
They wanted to make a gigantic game with literally endless content, so they heavily relied on procedural generation and a main plot that is build in a loop ➰. They made it very grindy, locked many game content behind stuff, so you can play it over and over and over and still haven’t unlocked everything.
Unfortunately they forgot that the game has to be fun, interesting, believable, immersive with a world that you want to explore.
They stretched the enjoyable content atom level thin. Combined with its size you experience the good stuff painfully slowly. That’s why it feels like a chore.
DragonAgeInquisition made the same mistake but not that extremely.
The Radiant NPCs are my favourite thing about the TES series, and it's upsetting that Bethesda has progressively toned it down over each release since Oblivion, when it adds so much life and dynamism to their games. I want to see the massively dynamic NPCs that Oblivion's trailers suggested the game's NPCs would have, not the increasingly static and boring NPCs Bethesda seems to increasingly gravitate towards with every subsequent release.
This is technically feasible, games like X4:Foundations have very dynamic and well simulated NPCs, and it looked like it was in the cards for Oblivion back in the day too.
Somehow they didn't even reuse all of their game systems from previous games for Starfield. Whats whats worries me for TES6.
That feels like their MO since Daggerfall. Which you didn't notice after 1-2 games, but later.
Always love to hear your balanced, constructive thoughts. Ramble on!! Thanks Morty son !!! ❤💀
We love hear you ramble :3
I really wanted to love Star Field but it didn't have the replay hook of their other games for me. I realized that was because every character was actually the same for a huge amount of the inital game. In skyrim i decide Heavy Armor and Two handed or Sneaky archer and by the inital escapes exit i have characters that work and feel different. In Star Field at 20 hours all characters are just now able to carry stuff fly a ship and open basic locks. Its take a lot longer to level and you invest a huge portion of those levels into generic stuff.
It'll never happen again after the last time was so embarrassing for Bethesda, but I'd love for them to just hand Elder Scrolls off to another studio like they did with New Vegas.
But... history tells us that they will make a progressively shallower, pared down evolution of their formula, and the hype train will delude 'everyone' into thinking this time will be different.
Personally, in the 60+ hours I put into Starfield, that I didn't see anything remotely approaching choices that mattered/had any impact or interesting faction interactions.
Nobody cares about choices that matter. Skyrim didn’t really have any and it was their best game and is still played to this day.
What they need is an modable engine that actually pushes the industry forward so when you step out of the starting area you get blown away by the world you’re looking at.
@@kevinc8955You don’t care about choices and that why you think Skyrim is their best game 😂
Once I got Skyrim VR (virtual reality) working with community mods I stopped playing Starfield. Skyrim VR is just on another level that is so wonderful it's almost not fair to compare it to other Bethesda games. I HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend this to anyone who loves the Elder Scrolls universe. I'm not sure that Starfield will even compare once they do figure out VR support. Skyrim is so much more immersive and real. I sincerely hope that the new ES will have both the creation community Skyrim has, which is invaluable as the game ages it keeps improving beyond publisher support, as well as VR support. Given how amazing Skyrim VR is (and the age of this game) I can't imagine how good the new ES6 VR will be. Side note I have an Oculus Quest 3 running on PC-VR with the Skyrim mods (FUS) installed > can't recommend this enough.
what makes the leveling system for something like morrowind great is that it is unique. Most CRPGs use a class based, perk based leveling system. Morrowind's leveling system might be more flawed from a balance perspective, but it is different from a traditional system.
I know this was 3 months ago, but I recently discovered your channel and have loved it. I thought I'd share my opinion on the whole Starfield thing.
Something I have noticed is that people have complained about Bethesda games since Skyrim for not being complex as something like Daggerfall or Morrowind, the fan favorite best Bethesda games. People complain about Skyrim being too simple and casual, and that the simple design extends to stories and quests so instead of having quests that are complex and require thinking, you have these quests that are so simple, you have to spend little to no thoughts thinking about outcomes or what to do. This design choice of Making things simple for a more general and casual audience is making people mad because they want what Morrowind and Daggerfall did, where you didn't know what to do and the game said "figure it out" and dropped you in a location with no other info.
They want quests, even small ones, that make you think and have a small layer of complexity to them beyond *good choice*, *bad choice*, and maybe *neutral choice*. It's honestly very reasonable wanting Bethesda to go back to what they did, making worlds where yo need to try, but Bethesda sits here and tries to make a game that has the design of their favored games, but simplified and made in a way that is more accessible and easy to jump into for a casual audience, which most people would not want because it removes the complexity of the games systems. Honestly, I'm more or less on the fence, while I like the simple design because it does make it easy to jump in and have fun for a bit, it also acts as a downside because the simple jump in and do it design has obviously kept them from making quests with the complexity of Morrowind-like quality.
I think another thing that also acts as a detriment is that Starfield is obviously designed with Daggerfall in mind. Daggerfall was never meant to be a game where the open world mattered, it was meant to be an RPG where the dungeon diving mattered. The reason why they added an openworld was because it helped flesh out the game and make it feel real. The best way to describe Daggerfall is a dungeon diving RPG, with simulator elements for extra role-playing depth, and it's obvious that Starfield more or less does the same, but much more simplified and less complex, which of course goes to the issue of people not liking Bethesda because they are simplifying their games for a more general audience. You can also liken the open world travel experience to Daggerfall, where you need to fast travel to actually get anywhere, and the openworld aspect is basically useless outside of encountering enemies or NPCs, and very very very rarely, an actual quest, but it's useless because the main focus is on towns and dungeons, not the open world. You could also liken the travel mechanic of Starfield to Elder Scrolls 1 Arena. Arena had a travel system where you needed to open a map of the continent, then click on a country which brought up a country map, then click on a town to fast travel to. Once you are in this town, you have one town (or outpost if we use Starfield terms) where you can get a quest or 2, and the rest of the area is just dungeons and empty openworld, aside from maybe an animal or 2. Along with this were of course, loading screens to get to these areas, loading screens for dungeons, and loading screens for buildings.
So honestly, Starfield is really just Bethesda doing the simplify for a casual audience thing most BGS fans hate, but using the design of Daggerfall/Arena. Both games already being scrutinized by most casual audience people because they are dated, or they are a specific niche that doesn't appeal to them.
I want to see more interaction between companions and other NPC's like they did in Fallout 4. I really loved how Nick Valentine was commenting on things that were happening in the story and how he reacted to the comments of other essential characters. They should do this in tes 6 but with even more consequences. That would make the game much more connected whereas in older bethesda games, the companions didnt really care that the story was progressing or who the player was interacting with.
The fact that we are getting GTA 6 before we get Skyrim to me is crazy!
Skyrim?
What i want is Rpg style mechanics and lore like Morrowind, Sidequests from Oblivion and I guess modern graphics from Skyrim ?
its so bizarre going from something like morrowind/oblivion to starfield. a full town in morrowind would let you talk to every single npc, they would give you quests or directions or simply just lore and it would make you spend time in the towns trying to talk to everyone.
but in starfield, the npcs are literally just background filler. im too busy running from point a to point b to cash in my quest reward to care about random one liners from bystanders. even the character creation doesnt matter which archetype you start with, as you can just level up the skills from all trees anyway. like every single build needs to upskill in piloting otherwise you're dead in space.
they need to make an rpg with action elements, not another action game with rpg elements.
So I've seen mods for two different solutions for the Morowind/Oblivion leveling problem, the first is just to set all your level up modifiers (other than luck) to 5 or some other static number. The second is to have you gain stats as you level up skills(I think it was 1 stat per 4 points in relevant skills) independently of leveling up. The first is actually reminiscent of Dagerfall's system where you got a certain number of stat points per level up, though the second is I think more inline with the whole idea of your characters growth being determined by play style.
The first of the three big things I would like to see are a continuation of the story line with the Thalmore trying to destroy the world to escape Lorcan's trap and become god's which is incredibly Gnostic. I'd also like to see a return of mutually exclusive factions, more in the way we saw in Morowind than in Oblivion (the necromancers and Blackwood company weren't really actual factions). In a more mechanical sense I'd like to see a return of spellcrafting.
Also if a quest is going to offer a unique item/spell it should not be level scaled. As cool an idea as that was in Oblivion it just meant that I always wanted to hold off on all of those quests until so late that it didn't matter, and it became the same sort of anxiety source as the making sure I was getting two +5 modifiers and that one of those was endurance because unlike mana HP was determined by what your endurance was at level up not what it is now.
Honestly i wouldn't complain if its just skyrim with updated combat, better magic and magic crafting, and a new engine. They dont need to re-invent the wheel, just stop putting out a shittier wheel with each game since skyrim. Of course, i would love for more depth, better questlines, more faction mechanics, better npc interactions and random encounters, and actual choices that matter, but i don't have my hopes high for bethesda anymore.
One thing that would be awesome in a future fallout game is Skyrim’s dual wielding system. Like a melee weapon in one hand and pistol in the other solid snake style. Or 2 pistols. Or 2 melee weapons. Or a mac11 style smg and a sawed off double barrel. They could also tie it into fallout 4’s weapon modding system where removing a weapon’s stock would make it dual-wieldable, as well as making it less accurate and using a different perk/skill. I love games with wacky dual wielding combinations, and I feel like we take that for granted in Skyrim.
You hit the nail on the head. Bethesda has been stripping back content for a while now, trying to make things less buggy and also more universally appealing, but it's just been depriving their newer games of depth that the old games had. I'd rather live with a few bugs for compelling gameplay than to have the opposite.
While I didn’t love starfield I still liked it enough but I hope for ES6 they go back to their roots on some ideas
There's so much potential with radiant ai and procedural generation IF its used correctly. For example, imagine a planet generates a mining operation and fills it with pirates. The player clears it out, and the mine is now producing output. The output gets shipped back along a trade route, which the pirates then attack. The player then feels like their actions had an impact, and that the world is responding to their choices with logical followups.
Bethesda's obsession with radiant quests could also work if they implemented it well. Instead of their current system of a generic bounty to clear generic bandits from a generic cave, imagine these examples.
The player is advancing in the College of Winterhold. They get given a quest to go to a Dwemer ruin and aid in its excavation and study. The game chooses an unexplored Dwemer dungeon and places a few friendly professors and students in the entryway for the player to interact with. The game then chooses from a pool of enemies, in this case Dwemer automatons. The player is tasked by one of the professors to clear them out, and to further explore the dungeon. The game then flags the players available pool of spells, their armor, their weapons, and if they have any companions or if they frequently use conjuration for back up. In this case the player is a Mage who almost exclusively uses spells in fights, has a heavy armored Lydia backing them up, and who always summons a flame atronach. The game then spawns in a large mob spider automatons, backed up by several melee and crossbow spheres. That way when the player enters combat, Lydia and the atronach protect the player from the melee mobs, giving the player the chance to aid from the backline, but not be immune from danger due to the crossbow spheres trying to focus on them. The player works their way through the dungeon. As the quest is an excavation one generated by the College, several logical to find books and enchanted items are placed as random loot. As the dungeon is Dwemer, several high quality smithed items, such as jewelry, armor pieces, or weapons are rolled as loot. The player then hits the boss room. The game sets the centurion's health and damage based on the prior player evaluation, and additionally gives it some melee sphere's as backup due to the player's companions. The reward in the boss chest is then rolled from a pool that selects for items flagged for Dwemer dungeons, and the fact the quest was given by the College, perhaps a permanent Dwemer sphere companion based on the player's conjuration and companion focused play-style.
NOW
The player is advancing in the Companions. They get given a quest to go to a Dwemer ruin, as the College of Winterhold has requested assistance bandits hindering an excavation. The game chooses an unexplored Dwemer dungeon, and places a few friendly professors and students in the entryway for the player to interact with. The game then chooses from a pool of enemies, in this case Bandits. The player is tasked by one of the professors to clear out the Bandits, who have set up shop in the depths of the readily available fortress, and who have now kidnapped one of the professors. The game then flags the players available pool of spells, their armor, their weapons, and if they have any companions or if they frequently use conjuration for back up. In this case the player is a heavily armored melee warrior, who always brings Aela along on fights for a ranged support, and who turns into a werewolf if the fight is going badly. The game then spawns a mixed group of ranged bandits who Aela will trade shots with, while the player has to contend with several melee bandits now clad in pieces of Dwemer armor, and using Dwemer weapons. The player works their way through the dungeon. As the quest is a clear bandit quest generated by the Companions, high value items such as jewelry or gold is placed as loot. As the dungeon is Dwemer filled with Bandits, a random assortment of high quality smithed Dwemer items and rare but more poorly maintained random other armor and weapons are placed as loot. The player then hits the boss room. The game chooses a bandit chieftain, setting his health and items based on the prior player evaluation, and additionally gives him a mage as backup. The reward in the boss chest is then rolled from a pool that selects for items flagged for Dwemer dungeons, and the fact the quest was given by the Companions, perhaps a high quality enchanted Dwemer armor piece or weapon of a type the player uses.
And Again
The player is advancing in the Thieves guild. They get given a quest to go to a Dwemer ruin, as the College of Winterhold is excavating it of valuable artifacts. The game chooses an unexplored Dwemer dungeon, and places a few professors and students in the entryway for the player to interact with. The game then chooses from a pool of enemies, in this case, College students and professors guarded by mercenaries. The player is tasked by their informant, one of the students, that several rare artifacts have been found, with the rarest being guarded by a small army of automatons, whom the professors and mercenaries are working to get past. The game then flags the players available pool of spells, their armor, their weapons, and if they have any companions or if they frequently use conjuration for back up. In this case the player is a lone stealth archer, who uses illusion magic and charm spells to back up their sneaking. The game then spawns patrols of mercenaries and professors for the player to sneak past or pick off, or charm into not minding their presence. The player works their way through the dungeon. As the quest is a thieving quest generated by the Thieves guild, high value items such as jewelry or gold is placed as loot. As the dungeon is Dwemer filled with mages and mercenaries, a random assortment of high quality smithed Dwemer items and spell-books and enchanted items are placed as loot. The player then hits the boss room. The game chooses a group of mages and mercenaries exchanging blows with a small army of spheres, presenting an opportunity to sneak past in the confusion or help one side or the other pick off their opponents to decide the fight in their advantage. The reward in the boss chest is then rolled from a pool that selects for items flagged for Dwemer dungeons, and the fact the quest was given by the Thieves Guild, perhaps an expensive piece of Dwemer jewelry or a high quality Dwemer crossbow.
So
In all three instances, the same assets were used, but the game used procedural generation in the best possible way to make the quest feel relevant to the player's prior choices. The guiding hand to do the quest was done by the player's chosen faction, the enemies and bosses were set to be fun encounters based on the player's chosen play-style and items, and what the player finds as loot makes logical sense based on proper flagging in loot tables. Also, the dungeon itself can be made to be far higher quality than it otherwise might have been. As the same dungeon can be found from multiple quest paths, each faction doesn't need their own dedicated random generic dungeon pools. The shared pool could then be focused on to a much higher degree. This smaller pool can then be made to be fun to fight through AND sneak through, AND explore, AND have a unique idea to make it distinct from other dungeons of a similar type.
AND
AND
This system would even allow reuse of these dungeons if the player does multiple factions.
A player who cleared out the ruin for the Mage's guild could come back as a Companion to rescue their fellow students when Bandits seized the opportunity of a cleared ruin to set up a base and seize the students as hostages for ransom. A current Thief and former Companion could sneak past their prior hirers to grab a rare artifact held by one of the professors.
The dungeon's now higher quality level design and radiant quest and ai systems are now working together to re-contextualize an area and create emergent storytelling that feels like its reacting to the players past choices, when its only pulling from tables and reusing assets.
Sounds like you need a job at Bethesda in quest design
Getting a bad main line elder scrolls game would be a big L, so I really hope they buckle down and do it justice. I'm a bit worried after 76 and Starfield, but I'm hopeful that they will take it seriously and learn from the mistakes.
A smaller, dense map filled with interesting things, better quests, ditch procedural generation altogether.
And make roleplaying matter. I don't want a character who ends a playthrough as the head of 5 different guilds and the champion for a handful of gods and daedra. Lock some things off. Encourage multiple playthroughs.
Great video topic Mr. Mort. And awesome commentary as always
I remember watching these exact videos 10 years ago, thinking TES was on a shorter cycle than it actually is. It's kind of fun and cute how we are still making the exact same videos ten years on.
One thing I want that isn't exactly top of the list but would be nice, is a character selection menu. Since you choose races in TES unlike Fallout, having multiple saves needs to be easier to maintain.
I hope they add back events that change the world, like in Oblivion.
Your opinions are valuable, Mortym.
Things I want to see:
- I want to see more than 'main quest + 4 faction, but in new province'. Starfield did it too and the faction quests, outside of the Fleet, were god awful. It felt like following the blueprint and that sucks.
- I don't want yet another protagonist tied to special powers. Make the story not revolving around specific mechanic like shout or whatever Starfield is calling their powers, which aren't even that interesting.
- Less clunky combat. There is a reason, why people pick Sekiro-like combat mods for Skyrim. And although I personally enjoy the slower pace of vanilla Skyrim combat, it often makes me feel dumb, as there is no tactic involved
- If there is any housing, make it good. Not having a snap tool to the walls in your Starfield house immediately made me not want to do it (or if there is, I haven't discovered it)
- Linear dungeons need to go away. Seriously, we are not dumb, we can go through a dungeon with branching paths.
- Enemy power levles should have bigger variations. I'm okay with having the world levelling up with me, but it does sometimes make me feel not stronger, but pretty much the same. Make some locations/enemies harder, but still within range of the player
- reduce the amount of "you get % bonus to something" on perks, those skills are boring and unimaginative, I don't care if I kill the enemy in 3 hits rather than 4, if the swings are still the same; mods like Ordinator showed that there is room for cool 'visible' powers from perks and not just 'invisible' numbers
- make cities bigger and believable; they claim Starfield had the biggest cities which might be true... but are you telling me that there are no outskirts outside of New Atlantis? No farms? No roads? That there wasn't any expansion to the settlements on Mars, Titan? Akila City looks medieval, seriously, don't they have the tech to at least pave the roads? Those little things make the world game so much better.
yeah i enjoyed SKyrim more than newest Ubisoft games in recent years
I feel like starfield also feels empty because it’s modern.
You don’t expect Giant cities filled to the brim with thousands of people, skyscrapers, and buildings when it comes to Skyrim. The same goes for fallout. With those games you could make most of the map a cozy forest with some dungeons, secrets, and monsters to find. You don’t expect the entire map to essentially be one big city. Instead it can be mostly forest/mountain/terrian, with several houses humble towns, a few cities, and maybe one outstanding city. All on one map that (if you wanted to really test your will) could be traversed without fast travel.
Same with fallout, most of the map can be a desolate wasteland with some monsters, caves/vaults/dungeons and interesting encounters. You don’t expect a large portion of the map to be one huge bustling city with semi-realistic NPC’s that are traveling, working, hosting shops, etc. even when you do expect that, it’s only for maybe a hundred or so NPC’s, not a few hundred or even a thousand+ like with a modern city.
Skyrim and fallout could condense those cities into much smaller cities due to their setting and it makes sense, and those smaller cities felt more handcrafted and immersive.
I’m pretty sure the next Elder scrolls takes place in a desert so I think the same will apply. Several interesting cities (small-medium) with large deserts and canyons between. Of course they have to have quest, monsters, dungeons, secrets, Easter eggs, etc. in the landscape, but I feel like it won’t feel as hollow as starfield’s cities.
I'm come back to this video in 2030 when they finally get around to releasing this game.
Excellent and fair video. I agree 100%, including the fear that Bethesda listens to the wrong feedback. Sadly, videos like yours are rare on TH-cam when it comes to Starfield.
I hope Avowed does similar things.
Playing the latest Bethesda games, I still don't know if I'll buy a new game from them again, sad, because I liked the older games
The worst thing about Starfield is how it squandered all the good things it did for character building by having the absolute worst pacing.
I have no doubt we're going to have enough another oblivion -> skyrim 'streamlining' because they would rather throw the baby out with the bathwater than take the time to really fix anything.
The most important thing for Bethesda is to improve the NPC AI, both in terms of character interaction and combat AI. I wonder if it would be possible to implement something like the Nemesis system from Shadow of Mordor to their RPGs to enable NPCs to respond in realistic ways
Great video dude. I love that you can stay true to your opinion in the mist of all the hate and still talk about this stuff in a calm an reasoned manner, without overdramatizing like most other youtubers seem to do. Respect you for that.
I personally think the hate for starfield is hugely overblown even though I agree with alot of the criticism the game has gotten. It's a pretty good game, that just could have been so much better, which makes it a dissapointing game.
I still have hope for the TES 6 because even tho starfield was a pretty big misstep in some ways I still think there's signs in starfield that point towards that BGS listened to the main criticism Fallout 4 got. So I think there is a pretty good chance of them listening to the criticism starfield now has gotten. What also gives me hope is that fact that the main problems with starfield such as the world, exploration and how you travel within the world, these are aspects that traditionally have been big strengths of BGS, so I don't think it's a stretch to see them adress these problems in TES 6 at all. We will see how it turns out though when it comes out in like 5 years. keep up the good content!
But, he’s not screaming, cursing, or wearing a silly outfit…. He’s hardly a youtube reviewer at all! 😄
@@kingleech16 haha yeah I guess... Mortismal if your reading this please don't start screaming and don't get a silly outfit, it's not the right direction for the chanel, even if you can't be considered a real youtube reviewer without it... 😋
I left 8 comments to help with the TH-cam algorithm.because people always say leave likes and comments it helps alot .
Traveling in Morrowind was a chore, but it helped with the immersion. With the las two releases having fast travel, it's hard to imagine it going away. I think more FO4 shallowness is to come. Thanks for the video. Onward to 300k. All glory to the algorithm.
Bethesda peaked at Skyrim, and that’s a much higher peak than most studios achieve. With that being said I can’t imagine them creating a product at this point, or going forward that would interest me in the least.
I respect the hope you have. Definitely will watch your review before touching this
As long as ESVI keeps to one planet and continent with radiant quests and something to find every 2 minutes, it should in theory automatically be better in regards to exploration than Starfield.
oh, and while i'm at it, my choice for the ES6 area would be Black Marsh with all those creepy Argonians, murky, hostile atmosphere and a definite possibility for bloody horror elements to be introduced to go with the sword/sorcery aspects of the game
(and anyone objecting to my description of Argonians as "creepy" has clearly never seen my Argonian vampire build, which gave me the shudders just looking at him. he has nice teeth tho' lol)
My suggestion would be: dont focus on quantity but instead focus on systems! Make an Oblivion-sized game with Radiant AI 2.0: give a life to each NPC.
We are at the age of AI after all. A world too big overwelms the player (i.e. more time in between finding the great content/the most interesinting NPCs) and requires developers to spread themselves too thin (as was the case of Starfield).
The thing that really boggles me about quest NPCs is, I feel like Skyrim has an unused answer to them dying. When a shopkeeper or tavern owner dies, another NPC takes over their shop. If I'm out getting a family heirloom, and grandma dies, you're going to tell me you don't appreciate me returning her helmet to your house? Let NPCs pass quests on to each other like property, within reason.
What I want from TES 6 is:
1: Properly optimized and tested with as few bugs and glitches as possible
2: Come out during my lifetime, but not rushed
3: Maintain various difficulty levels and not turn into a souls game etc.
4: Longer well written quest lines, like someone already said
5: "Don't send me there again" if you know what I mean
6: More voice actors/voices
7: Don't leave all the work for modders to fix for the next 12 years
8: Don't leave cut content in to tease us for what could have been
9: idk anymore, just don't screw it up.
Honest to God I think a lot of the problems with the game can be fixed with the engine… not having to load to do anything will add to immersion. And make for opportunities to story tell rather than just… load. More random encounters and such.
Bethesda has been experimenting with things one game after another for decades, this issue now is that the time between titles is approaching a decade in a time where folks have ever dwindling memories and attention spans. Daggerfall was extremely experimental in its world design and really really broken, but it moved the game on to where Morrowind scaled back in scope but got much more rich. Oblivion refined and to streamlined Morrowind while Skyrim really nailed the polish and refinement of that system at the cost of losing some of that richness from previous titles. Starfield is the proving ground for the toolkit that Bethesda uses going forward and in all the core competencies of gameplay such as movement, traversal, hit detection and certainly graphics it nails it.
The foundation is very solid, now they can simply flesh it out going forward.
wait there's 1 NPC that has a schedule in Starfield, the bookseller in Akila City, she disappears at dawn and comes back at around 7AM. Someone follow her.
I think the cult fanbase of something like Deadly Premonition should be enough for them to have known "hey, giving NPCs schedules so people can follow them" is a good idea. Or Majora's Mask. It definitely wasn't all of why I think Oblivion found a lot of success despite its many shortcomings, but it's definitely something you hear people talk about when the game is brought up.
People enjoy that sort of thing even if it isn't necessarily well done or all that deep or immersive. Curiosity is just something people naturally have and they're disappointed when nothing comes of it more so than if they were to tail somebody and the routine was boring or didn't make too much sense--that is still interesting.
For the algorithm!
I just hope the melee weapon fighting will be better. For the rest, they can do whatever they want. They know what they’re doing