this post was submitted on 12 Oct 2024
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counterpoint: if it isn't the engine holding them back, then everyone left is just fundamentally bad at designing games (i'm not counting "let's just copy what we designed last time" as design), and that's worse
Obviously. The problem with Bethesda was never the damn engine, they've been consecutively dumbing down their games ever since Oblivion. The only anomaly was New Vegas made by Obsidian, which are actually competent at making RPGs and even with the dated FO3 engine at the time they managed to make one of the best games ever. The problem was never the engine, it's their game design philosophy.
the average player doesn't care about crunchy rpg systems. they do care if the core gameplay would've been outdated in 2010.
bethesda doesn't seem to be able to improve the core gameplay because the engine can't cope.
even if you fixed the writing and tossed out the awful procedural generation in favor of hand-crafted environments, at it heart it's still going to play like a stripped down borderlands 1
No, Bethesda can't improve because they keep catering for the lowest common denominator, engine has never had anything to do with it, it never has. They don't need a complex RPG system with a ton of flashy new things; New Vegas wasn't complex, it was fairly streamlined as far as RPGs go, what they need is better writers and better game designers that know how make interesting worlds, quests, characters and gameplay mechanics.
Because they've been dumbing down their games since forever, bring back more robust roleplay with more actions and consequences, fully fleshed out mechanics, get better writers. Just look at Fallout: London, despite the bugs everyone that has played it agrees it's the best "Bethesda game" since New Vegas, another game that wasn't actually made by Bethesda. I'll repeat: the problem was never the engine.
even in your ideal world where they perfect the world, quests and characters, tes 6 is still going to suck if core gameplay plays the same as skyrim, which played the same as oblivion
they can't improve that core gameplay without a better engine
new vegas and london are popular in the same way 1 and 2 are popular, which is "not mainstream enough to sustain a studio like bethesda".
Starfields core gameplay is actually leagues more refined then prior games on the same engine, feels really good to play, where it lacks heavily is story, which is historically how they made up the difference between the lackluster gameplay.
To clarify a little, I mostly mean the FPS style gunplay.
you and i must have been playing different bethesda games, because none of them have been particularly interesting story-wise
Elder Scrolls lore is pretty cool, they've never been AMAZING stories, but there's enough there to RP and make decisions and such that have some kind of impact.
I also don't think it's fair to blame the devs,I think they have a lack of direction.
Ever since Fallout 4, they've been trying to take their games in every direction possible at the same time.
Crafting? Check Vehicles? Check Skills? Check Online? Why not? Thousands of procedurally generated planets? Go for it Story? Anything goes, it doesn't need to make sense
The gameplay loop in Skyrim made sense, quests took you to dungeons that gave you loot which took you back to towns and more quests.
Ugh the crafting is a drag. You need to level up, you need to build outposts for materials, and you need to create useless stuff as practice, and you have to deal with an inventory system from 2010. It's like after the daggers in Skyrim they decided crafters in a single player game needed to be punished. Any one of those systems would have worked to provide a feeling of progression and keeping people from going too fast on crafting.
And it doesn't even interact with anything else!
You can either get materials by setting up a bunch of outposts which is a complete drag or buying them at like one shop in Akila City.
It's like they saw they had that in Fallout 4 and 76, ported it over and then remembered that you can't scrap random junk to get the materials.
It's not even used for ship upgrades. Why does it even exist???