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[NakeyJakey] Bethesda's Game Design Was Outdated a Decade Ago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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Is their game design dated? What other RPG has mechanics beyond "run up to NPC, talk to NPC, receive quest from NPC, perform quest for NPC, return to NPC and get reward"?
I 100% agree that the Creation Engine is hot garbage, but are any other RPGs with cleaner newer engines actually innovating RPG mechanics?
I mean, that's a quest at it's core but a good game works it into a narrative and makes it blend. Ideally making all 6 steps anything but tedious. Ideally interesting and fun, but at all times avoiding tedious like the plague.
Best example I've seen is this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4ADco41g9s&ab_channel=Nathidraws
Two identical "perform quest for NPC"s, which is your step 4. Negotiate for a thing in a briefcase from somebody who probably will double cross you.
Which one is more tedious? Now combine a 4 minute run in a barren wasteland in your steps 1 and 6...
A few other things that Cyberpunk did, There are several ways to handle that mission, those several options can cause 3 major shifts in that faction. Which affect other missions later on, indeed any time you deal with the maelstrom gang.
Cyberpunk had a lot of flaws but, they're at least innovating. I've never been in a legit standoff like that in a game. It's always been in a static looping animation at 8 paces.
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if you go abstract enough then any game can be dated. all you do is load the game, do some stuff, maybe get some rewards, and then close it.
people are saying bethesda is outdated because of how they implement these abstract ideas. they’re stale and years behind what other games are doing.
Maybe you've heard of a little indie gem by the name of Baldur's Gate 3?
Although personally I'd take more umbrage with the writing, dialogue, voice acting, and lack of mocap performance over the actual gameplay mechanics.
Bethesda struck gold with Skyrim, but I don't think they've moved past it.
What I'm saying is that beyond the clunkiness of the CE, I don't find the flow of gameplay in Skyrim or Fallout New Vegas to be any different than most RPGs, which is to say it's not in my top 5 criticisms of Bethesda. What they did with Starfield looks kinda boring to me so I'm respectfully passing on it.
I've yet to play BG3, but it's absolutely on my horizon. Just picked up DOS2 and gonna give that a go first.
I've played Starfield for 30 hours and I've played about 10 hours now of BG3.
The difference is remarkable. As far as RPG goes, BG3 actually gives you a way to do the role-play part of RPG. You just have so much choice and your choices have consequences. For example, it turns out, someone died because I left an encounter that I wasn't prepared for and that came back on me later when I found a guy that I should have had a quest line with.
You have relationships, you can choose several ways to approach problems and quests, and the character building is huge. There's real strategy to everything.
Starfield is just so bland in comparison.
(BTW, BG3 combat is real difficult early on, where I've had to save scum just to make it past some fights, but at lvl 3 it gets more manageable. Definitely take time to learn your party's strengths and weaknesses.)
I think "dated" is a terrible concept to apply to game design, despite being able to divide FPS games into pre- and post- Half-Life, boomer shooters are experiencing another boom.
However, Bethesda game design is simply "bad" in my opinion. The RPG mechanics are very surface level and uninteresting, typically an end-game character plays similarly to a beginning character but bullets hit harder or other such styles. Contrast that with games like Cyberpunk, and you unlock new ways to actually interact with combat in meaningfully unique manners.
That's a very underdeveloped point, but it's in the right direction I believe.