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[NakeyJakey] Bethesda's Game Design Was Outdated a Decade Ago
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this post was submitted on 10 Dec 2023
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It's annoying because a lot of people say it's no different to starting a new save file in any other game, but no other game encourages you to spend tens of hours on tedious pointing and clicking just to throw it away. Fallout 4's outpost system wasn't designed with the intention of deleting your settlements at any point in the story.
I don't really understand the NG+ complaints. The game warns several times in several ways you before you do it, and it is absolutely not necessary to enjoy the game. And people who know the reasons you'd want to NG+ because they read spoilers? They ALSO know that they're going to lose the previous playthrough well before they've gotten too deep into outpost design.
The most common Bethesda play pattern is to reach a point your'e so powerful you're "just done", so you go beat the game. You take a break, and come back to NG. The number of people who maintain all the FO4 settlements for hundreds of hours are quite rare. NG+ exists to give people of that most common play pattern the option to start over again and extra content they'll enjoy.
Starfield is technically bigger than Skyrim before accounting for NG+. So why punish them for a new feature that rewards what most gamers want to do?
I feel like this is a "this is why we can't have nice things" scenario. I have been wanting a fun NG+ mechanism in a Bethesda game for 15-20 years. I hate saying goodbye to my character, but I love rising through the ranks and completing major story quests in different ways.
Are you a bethesda dev? Because its like you only understand what the maybe potential intent was of the design, while being completely blind to the massive pile of neon feedback saying that the design failed to achieve the intent.
No. I like owning a home so I opted against gamedev :)
I mean, it's largely a success to me playing the game. Am I not allowed to enjoy it or struggle to understand why "Game A" might be strictly worse than "Game A plus feature B that many players really wanted"?
The difference is that the actual stated end goal of the game is to go NG+.Not defeat Aldiun, not battle for New Vegas.
So to use your words, it's not "Game A plus feature B", it's just feature B,
NG+ as a concept stresses immersion, and making it the point of the game shattered it completely. I like the idea or giving an in-game explanation, and the story they used could have worked, but it needed to be a side quest
I mean, it's "Discover the secrets of the artifacts". The main plot is never the goal of a Bethesda game.
Since when? You can say you don't like it, but it certainly technically worked.
Not a great sign if your advice for the game is to not play the main game, tho, no?
The main line of fallout or skyrim or oblivion may get sidetracked, but its still a huge goal thats genuinely fun and satisfying to complete.
That's not really what I'm saying, though. Bethesda's signature is always that their faction quests are deeper and cooler than their main quests. You're allowed not to like that, but it's definitely how Bethesda works.
I agree, as I felt Starfield was satisfying to complete. It's just not the point. They call them Sandbox RPGs for a reason. For Skyrim, I would take the Companions, Thieves Guild, Dark Brotherhood, Winterhold, etc over the main plot every day. For Fallout 4, it was different because the main plot turns into "pick a faction to wipe out the Institute (unless you pick the Institute)". Yeah, NV is similar with that. It got a lot of flak for that, but I thought it worked. Fallout 3, though... "I wanna make clean water". It's fun, but not why F3 is a masterpiece.
Don't hide behind objectivity when discussing art, it's all subjective all the time, and even statements that declare something is are subjective. The immersion is shattered because that is my experience with it for the reasons I already stated.
I don't need to add an 'in my opinion' because it never will be anything but my opinion
Unfortunately, you're not the only person I'm discussing Starfield with here, and most are trying to tell me that Starfield is objectively bad. I am not "hiding behind" objectivity, I'm arguing that Starfield isn't "objectively bad".
Much like literally, objectively is often used for emphasis, and I hate it, those words shouldn't be used that way
I think people here are actually trying to make objective statements about the quality of the game (that is, lack thereof). Though they aren't really quantifying good reasons to support that high bar.
When people watch the movie Grown Ups 2, there is a chance they might enjoy it despite it being a well recorded shit waste of time film.
That doesnt mean the entire world lied to hide a secret gemstone. It means that by chance you like an over all bad movie. No one said you arent allowed to enjoy shit films, but your single enjoyment doesnt make the film not shit.
Same thing here. The NG+ gambit failed, it does not do what the devs wanted. That it happens to work for you is great, for you, but doesnt change its grander failure.
Yeah, I really don't think there's any substantive way that Starfield compares to "Grown Ups 2". That's naked hyperbole.
Then just enjoy the game that's bigger than Skyrim and don't NG+. Bethesda games always include side-quests and mechanisms that some players want and others avoid.
It was an example to explain the idea of "you liking this doesnt mean everyone is gaslighting you" not a literal comparison.
The NG+ is just one part of you being the exception to the rule. Starfield isnt "an amazing game right up until they offer you NG+ then all the sudden it sucks ass." The story mode reset is just one more thing thats a problem with the design.
And... Being bigger than skyrim doesnt really matter when """bigger""" means you pick one of 10 buildings at random to respawn in front of me, forever. Its radiant quests as world building, as if radiant quests werent already a complained about issue of monotonous content.
So to be clear, you think you can demonstrate that Starfield is the "Grown Ups 2" of video games? This conversation isn't me arguing there's something wrong with you for disliking Starfield, but you trying to imply that starfield is a genuinely bad game in some objectively quantifiable way.
Specifically, Starfield is bigger than Skyrim with regards to hand-crafted content, leaving procedural content out entirely. There's more hand-crafted locations than Skyrim by square meters, and more non-Radiant quests in Starfield by a fairly large margin (apparently it's that Starfield has as many hand-crafted quests as Skyrim+Fallout4 combined).
So no, "bigger" does not mean picking one of 10 buildings at random to respawn. Those 10 buildings at random are yet another of those "added on top of the completed game that people are now complaining about" things like NG+.
Not only did I never say starfield was the grown ups 2 of anything, I literally just clarified for you that I didnt claim that. It was an example of the concept of "just because you like something, doesnt mean its good." I do not know how else to reword this for you.
If you cant grasp a very simple example, Im not sure how to continue talking with you about more nuanced topics without you completely misconstruing what I say.
I'm thinking you can't continue talking about any topics with me if it's getting incivil. I'm not looking for reddit 2.0. So I'll just agree to disagree.
Im not sure where this was uncivil, I just dont want to repeat myself 4 times per point
When a dev says that the game doesn't really "start" until you finish the main story, I feel like that means it is actually necessary to enjoy the game as they designed it. The game was designed with this form of NG+ from the very beginning. It's a bit like saying you can stop playing Nier: Automata after 2B's story. Sure, you can, but it's super not what the devs intended. Not engaging with NG+ is an option the same way quitting MW2 before No Russian is an option.
And for people who know the reasons you want to NG+, that causes a conflict. If I know from the start that I'm going to be ditching this universe, I'm not going to be invested in what it has to offer. When I reach the end of the game, _____'s death wasn't a big emotional moment because I never spent the time to develop a relationship with them.
NG+ has been sorely needed in Bethesda games for a long time, but saying this is what we've been asking for is like saying FO76 was the multiplayer Fallout experience we were asking for.