Yeah Todd, that means people want a deeper RPG experience than you give with just a simple perk system that allows you to be good at everything all at once.

Ok so he doesn't understand what makes an rpg beyond skill points. Explains a lot in hindsight. And got so close to clarity when he said they are making a game true to who they are. Just one fast travel away.

I want my choices to matter. The choices largely do not matter, if you're even given a real choice at all. This has been the issue with their RPGs since Oblivion, and has only gotten worse over time. I don't just mean how I move through a dungeon and take care of enemies; I mean in dialogue. When I am presented with a logical thing I could do or say, but I don't actually have the option to do it, it sucks.

Yes Todd, video games have changed. Some would even say grown & matured. Every game has aspects & mechanics from multiple genres. Like, one of the most played racing games is GTAV, probably.

Dudes stuck in the 90's. I'm a little surprised he even knows what other games look like. He's only worked with one game engine his entire career.

Oh wait, that's not true. He also released two mobile games... that are the same game, artwork and everything. So, two game games. He has created two different games his entire career.

The problem is that Todd and the rest of the creative team decided rather than doubling down on the RPG elements in a meaningful way, they would rather strip away all the mechanics and nerf them into essential obsolescence.

Planets were originally going to be a lot less forgiving and you would need different space suits for the environments. So for example, your frost prevention suit wouldn't help you in a high radiation environment, and you would need a different set of suits for different conditions. Not anymore! Now we just get a little icon in the HUD that says "planet conditions bad" and does nothing meaningful.

Starfield just made me want to go back to Cyberpunk 2077 where all the ground-based mechanics are done better, or to No Man's Sky, where all the ground-based and space-based mechanics are better.

My expectations:

The multiple NPC's on my ship won't talk over one another while I'm hailing another ship.

There is the fan, cora, cole, myself, and another crew member I bought in a bar all sharing a class A ship with a single bed, maybe one of these Habs should have been filled with bunks to make sense?

The game shouldn't crash constantly.

More original names for things that 'the artifacts'. That's a good first draft but come on.

Fallout and Elderscrolls had a lot of fun little side stories that revealed themselves on notes and computers as you explored the world. Starfield is lucky to have one memo talking about the facility before the spacers arrived to murder everyone.

Enemies should empty clip after clip into the window I am standing behind.

God of war ragnarok tuned this way down. Level is tied to equipment (max 9), xp is spent as currency on skills. I really liked it. Didn't feel like the game was RPGified at all.

"Everything is an RPG, that's why we doubled down on RPGs to stand out". Mmmkay then.

“Everything is an RPG” says the guy whose company has stripped out all but the most basic of RPG elements from their games.