I’ve always had a problem with procedural generation in open worlds. You can’t make a fleshed out world with computer generated content. Obviously not everything can be hand crafted, but when making a game that is supposed to feel real and be immersive most of it needs to be thought out. These studios wanna say that their game has infinite hours of content and 1000+ planets, but then each one ends up being a cheap copy of the last. A game like Star Wars Jedi: Survivor only has SIX locations. Granted the game is very story based, but I’d rather have six fully fleshed out locations than an infinite amount of generic copy paste. In many cases, less is more.

@LibraScope

6 ай бұрын

Procedural generation in open worlds is something I think CAN have value. But it greatly depends on the type of game it's used in, and how, so I pretty much agree with you. I think No Man's Sky - which I intentionally chose NOT to compare Starfield to in this video - is a good example of it working. Because the game isn't ABOUT having those hand tailored adventures, and its systems and mechanics aren't designed around such scripted content. Instead, everything is designed around extracting value out of the LACK of scripting; a level of unique value to your individual playthrough. Another example for me would be something like the Chalice Dungeons in Bloodborne, or if a game like GTA VI used procedural interiors as a way to fill out its otherwise inaccessible buildings. You still have all of the hand crafted content, and it takes center stage in everything that's higher budget. You don't need to do a single Chalice Dungeon to beat Bloodborne, and in a perfect world if a game like GTA VI used procedural interiors, it would ALWAYS default to the hand crafted interiors for story missions and such. But, the procedural stuff still adds that bit of texture and breadth that you CAN engage with if you wish. And on top of that, a game like GTA usually has a lot of complex, interwoven systems at play that could help make such procedural areas still feel dynamic in a way that Starfield absolutely cannot. But ultimately, it either has to be THE focus that the entire game's structure is built around, or so optional that you're really only losing breadth, texture, and filler content if it was missing.

From what I extrapolated from prerelease interviews, I feel like Starfield is largely the result of Skyrim still having tens of thousands of dedicated, active players despite being released over a decade ago and Bethesda not really understanding why (or at least taking the wrong lessons away from the “why”). I think they outright stated that one of their design goals was to create a game that people would play for a decade, but (as far as I know) that wasn’t their intention when developing Skyrim. They were just making a follow-up to Oblivion, a game that at that point had just been released. They weren’t aware of its future staying power, and if they were I feel like Skyrim would have suffered from the same problems as Starfield. I think that’s where a lot of the game’s core problems originate. And as far as their game design not being outdated, I totally agree with you. But I think Bethesda as a whole is stagnant, not their game design. Fans, media outlets, etc have spent the past 10+ years wondering what Bethesda has been up to and were expecting their next game to be this revolutionary successor to Skyrim but Starfield is far from that, and I also feel like it’s far from the product of an 8 year development cycle. If Bethesda had been growing their team, their engine, and their skills in all that time to match the aspirations of a game like Starfield and to meet the expectations of a fanbase who had received one of the most successful video games of all-time Starfield could have had the potential to be the game it deserved to be. Carrying the entirety of the Xbox brand on their backs probably required Bethesda to play things extremely safe to the point where nearly all creativity or innovation was stifled. More than probably any other game in existence, I’d be extremely interested in seeing what concepts were left on the cutting room floor and what Todd’s initial vision for the game was (after whatever NDA he signed with Microsoft expires).

@LibraScope

6 ай бұрын

That's actually a really excellent point! Skyrim's thought process during development was almost certainly focused on how they could innovate on and one-up Oblivion. In fact, I remember clearly that a lot of their marketing was specifically targeting things people criticized about Oblivion. They still wanted people to see the game as 'bigger', but it was about short term longevity, not over years and years. Otherwise, everything they mentioned was stuff like "We now have more than 12 voice actors.", and "We now hand make all of the dungeons again, instead of using pre-made pieces.", and "Our animation system was completely overhauled." and "You can now duel-wield and combine spells.", etc. Skyrim was the one time that - while they stripped out certain aspects of the design that I liked from Oblivion - I felt like they struck an okay balance of player flexibility, and a presentation (bugginess aside) that matched the triple-A zeitgeist at the time. And I think a focus on making a BETTER game than Oblivion in ways people criticized Oblivion for, made that happen. And that's almost certainly contributed to that game's longevity. It's funny, because despite the horrendous, absolutely unacceptable launch of Cyberpunk 2077, I think that game - basically their main competition in this space - has potentially stumbled upon that '10 year game' status that Bethesda seeks.

Instant points for Oblivion music ;) I love the crayons vs. pencils analogy for the concept of outdated game design as well (because I wholeheartedly agree that it's not a legitimate critique in and of itself - context is everything). I didn't play much of Starfield, but I very much agree with your points from what I did try. I still intend to go back to it, but it's the first Bethesda game which hasn't grabbed me in any way - it felt very humdrum and, well, sterile. I love your quest ideas though! Those sound like incredibly fun ideas - especially the Adoring Fan one XD Anyway, wonderful analysis as always. Happy Holidays mate! =D

@LibraScope

6 ай бұрын

Hahaha, thanks! I'm interested to see where Bethesda goes with any feature/content updates, and DLC. If they double down and ignore the issues, if they try to address them by simply adding more bespoke content to go through, or if they actually tackle them head on. I've heard that Xbox's update pipeline is particularly slow even for first party devs, hence why the updates for Starfield and Forza both were very sparse while I had GamePass. If so, I wonder how long it'll take for them to respond in ANY real way? Happy Holidays to you too!

@OniLink99999

6 ай бұрын

@@LibraScope Bethesda has pulled off some pretty fantastic DLC in the past, so they could try to tackle the issues! Even something more self-contained and focused like Shivering Isles could be fun. Ah, that's interesting to hear! You'd think that for a first-party developer, everything would be sped up and made a priority. I'd say Starfield should be very interesting to revisit in a year's time, to see how things have changed (or...not XD). Thanks mate! =D

@LibraScope

6 ай бұрын

Yeah. I have little confirmation of it, but I've heard whispers from people in the industry about it. Since I don't have an Xbox currently, I can't personally confirm by paying attention to how quickly updates for their first party stuff generally release. But even very minor fixes and such in Forza and Starfield took forever to come out. It was about a month between each update. The thing that for me lends particular credence to the idea, was the severity of some of the issues in Forza that made the game unplayable... that instead of releasing as soon as possible as hotfixes, were held onto until their first content update. When a wealth of your players can't even PLAY the game, you'd think that at very least would get quick, priority update delivery. But nope, they just sat on it... and from what I've heard that's just kinda normal? But yeah, I'm interested in what both Starfield and Forza look like in a year's time, for sure.

@OniLink99999

6 ай бұрын

@@LibraScope I did notice it felt like a long time for Starfield to receive its update, yes. It's very different to Steam, where it's practically instant to release an update haha. Ahh, I see! Man, that sounds like something out of the 360/PS3 days, where developers would have to *pay* to release updates and so they'd try and do as few as possible. But I'm surprised to hear that that's still a normal practice nowadays. I do understand it to some degree, though. Updates (particularly testing updates to make sure they don't break anything) is time-consuming - especially so for a AAA game I'd imagine XD

@LibraScope

6 ай бұрын

@@OniLink99999 Oh absolutely. To some extent it's very smart to prioritize an update's efficacy over swiftness of release. It's just that generally when such a big studio has such pressing issues, you see a lot of 'all hands on deck' sort of responses, where they'll take as many devs and resources as they have available to help. And considering it's Microsoft we're talking about, and they also have Playround Games on tap because of Forza Horizon, you'd expect both quality and speed from their updates. The irony being that even when they DID update the game, they still didn't fix the root issue of a lot of the stuff they thought they had. So in this case we didn't get the efficacy we were hoping for, nor did we get it with any haste. Starfield's updates though at least seem to be fixing stuff outright, and making great strides with performance and new quality of life improvements. Definitely NOT what I'd have ever expected, considering how famous Turn10 is for their technical polishing prowess, and how Bethesda is kind of known for... you know... the opposite, lol.

A nicely measured critique, good review. The opening bit about "dated game design" is particularly appreciated, as it's a phenomenon I've noticed that bothers me, too. I have seen someone (a decently sized KZreadr no less) claim at least once before that level scaling is inherently a flawed concept that doesn't work in any game, and also that it is inherently flawed because it is employed in Bethesda games. It seems like there's definitely an intent to appeal to a wider audience (with relative inexperience in game design) by tying issues with a game into those neatly digestible blanket wrappers. Charisma and wit defeats objective criticism in this case; gaming has become quite mainstream, and everybody has an opinion. On its own, this isn't really a big deal, but that mainstream nature of people who are just tired after a long day and want to come home to a nice casual experience has really fed into the industry stagnation and exploitation we're seeing. Much of the minutia that makes Starfield a decidedly less interesting experience than even something like Skyrim might not register to them. On the other hand though, it feels wrong to expect someone like that to take a dedicated stand for something they only have a casual interest in. It's no wonder then that companies like ActiBlizz continue to see success despite basically operating like a modern-day Shinra Incorporated. Honestly, it leaves me in a weird, uncertain state. That "Adoring Fan" quest proposition is fantastic too lol, reminds me of that one off-beat horror mission in A Hat in Time. A galaxy-spanning space-age adventure RPG like this sorely needed a bit of that memorable soul sprinkled across the game to keep things interesting, even if they had to sacrifice other areas to make it work.

@LibraScope

6 ай бұрын

Hahaha, that Adoring Fan quest was actually my first idea while coming up with quest examples for the video. Bethesda has tied quests and things to character creation choices before, so I thought with such a meme-able option there it would be weird of them not to take advantage of it. Full disclosure, I obviously didn't complete the entire game, lol. So it's very possible he DOES have a quest tied to him. And if he does, there's also a chance it's one of the more memorable ones. But that would still be one of very, very few from what I played and what I've seen. I think I might know the video you're referencing about level scaling, and yeah, that's an incredibly shallow and frustrating take. So, so, so much of it depends on the context a system or mechanic is placed in. Arguing that level scaling as a whole is bad (let alone specifically because Bethesda uses it) is like arguing that chocolate is a bad ingredient, because melting it, mixing it with mustard, and then putting that on pizza is (presumably, lol) gross.

@batman8674

6 ай бұрын

@@LibraScope Absolutely loving it if you've also seen it lol, it's the one that AcousticHarmonia references in his Scarlet/Violet deep-dive. Somewhere in that 7-hour epic, anyway... :P The pizza analogy works especially well here because it's reminiscent of many people's experience with, say, pineapple pizza; initially accepting a blanket truth that "pineapple won't work well on pizza," only to be shocked later on by how well the flavors compliment each other when they try it for themselves. An experienced chef might be able to tell you whether or not it'd work right off the bat, but most can only really speculate.

@LibraScope

6 ай бұрын

@@batman8674 Ahh, I'd never even heard of that channel until now, but maybe if I can find the time I'll check it out. Pineapple on pizza is the best thing everrrrrrrrrrrrr!

I had only a few bugs while playing one of them corrupted all my saves... so less buggy maybe...

@LibraScope

6 ай бұрын

Ouchhhh! I'm really sorry that happened. I've experienced similar issues several times over my life playing games, so I absolutely get that frustration. Heck, something not too dissimilar happened when I was trying to play through the new Forza, so I get'cha.

I think outdated fits when it's something that has moved past by others because there are better ways of doing it. retro looks and feels in a game is fine if your going for that feel. but if your trying to make a brand new super special awesome game using methods that have been abandoned when better newer stuff could be done is a good critique.

@LibraScope

6 ай бұрын

Someone else in the comments mentioned that they feel like me using the word 'stagnant' is similar to when someone calls a work 'outdated'. And so I think echoing my response to them here makes the most sense. For me, outdated suggests something that is immutably unfixable about what you're criticizing. It suggests that it cannot be modernized, and so it should be thrown out and replaced. As such, I thing using words like stagnant work better, because it instead alludes to a level of rust or dust that needs cleaned off of the idea you're criticizing. It needs reworked and polished up, not removed.

I think it's a terrible game, but in a context, as you said as a game, it's mediocre at worst, but as a bethesda game where you go in with certain hopes and ideas it's a terrible game. I put it as, I didn't think Casino Royale was nescarily a bad movie, just a bad bond film. Least till I watched a 30 minute video explaining why it is the way it was and made sense hehe :> Something can be a good/okay as Y but bad/terrible as X.

@LibraScope

6 ай бұрын

While I don't disagree with this wholeheartedly, I'm someone who's very careful about the idea of something being bad for (insert franchise here), because it's too easy to end up in gatekeeping territory. Who decides what is and isn't a 'real' facet of a series/franchise/etc. that should be expected in each work within that series? That's going to be different for everyone. That mindset also has a tendency to heavily lead toward the stagnation of a series, because the longer your series goes, the more things people start to see as inalienable aspects of what makes a work fit into it. And so the creative limitations continue to close in until creativity within that series is hardly allowed. I think a much more productive way to argue the same general idea, is just by explaining/arguing why a game fails to commit or execute on existing franchise ideas, well enough to be a successful example of it. Look at what the game/movie/book/album does, and then find the places where it tried to continue the artistic ethos of previous works and judge whether those bits succeed in that effort or not. In that way, you're sort of approaching it from the opposite angle. Instead of trying to force the new work into a needlessly rigid shape you've arbitrarily decided on, you're asking how strong the new work's shape is as a whole, and if it can hold as a solid and recognizable foundation for carrying the series forward :)

@wolfwing1

6 ай бұрын

@@LibraScope well when 99%+ people play skyrim/fallout 3/4 other then mods for the fun of exploration when the game lacks that, it's not a bethesda game. Most people going into starfield least the ones that have been there a long time are going to expect least some certain things. None of starfields biggest issues and bad things are exclusive to starfield but were in every other game bethesda has made outside of the obvious ones that didn't fit the world. What kept people other then moding playing fallout 3/4 and skyrim was exploration, the rpg elements and such. Things with starfield doesn't have in any real meaningful way just leaving the shit writing, the okayish combat, the overly drawn out boring quests and other things. Starfield is boring because the quests are boring, they were often boring in other games, but you had fun interesting stuff to do between quests to break it up. Finishing starfields main quest over 4-5 hours was a CHORE some of the worst quests, outside of one that they badly ripped off from a better game.

I think you and NakeyJakey are saying much of the same thing. Considering you described Starfield as “stagnant” and he said “outdated” in my opinion conveys the same general message: The game was ultimately unfulfilling and Bethesda was expecting the same design it’s been using for all of its flagship titles to carry it to more praise. It seems he’s just more frustrated about it than you ended up being and that’s fine, his style is a lot more suited to emotional response and “hot take” framing devices while you’re considerably more measured with your statements. I know your point wasn’t to argue that all these other reviewers and whatnot aren’t being as thoughtful, you’re clear about that, and my aim here isn’t to be the guy standing up for someone with as much reach as Jakey, like you made a personal attack on a dear friend of mine. Jakey absolutely does play things up and go for broad statements. I just wanted to note that despite how different the styles are, your granular and astute analysis can come to a very similar opinion as a yoga ball haha gamer. All that said, I enjoy your videos, especially the long form stuff. Keep it up!

@batman8674

6 ай бұрын

A good point, though I do feel that Starfield can be seen as lacking in some respects even when compared to other Bethesda titles, sans Fallout 76 of course. It could be considered a delivery of the same core gameplay, expanded to fill a vast ocean, but foregoing the theming and set dressing that made it palatable in the first place. Overall, though, that doesn't detract from your main point. This is an issue that NakeyJakey addresses in his video as well, I believe.

@LibraScope

6 ай бұрын

That's totally fair. For me, the crux of the term 'outdated' really does come down to the idea that it's irreparably antiquated in some way, and that because of that, it needs either COMPLETELY overhauled to such a degree that it won't resemble itself in the slightest when you're done... or removed entirely. Something 'outdated' to me, is that which cannot be modernized. That's the way I most frequently see it used by other KZreadrs personally as well, and that's why I like to delineate between terms like 'outdated', and 'stagnant'. For me, if it's stagnant, it just needs dusting off. But yeah, absolutely no shade at Jakey. While I can't help but to internally sigh when he's chosen to use that title structure and such in the past, what he says in those videos is coming from a place of earnestness, thoughtfulness, and respect for the developers. I don't always agree, but he's never mean or spiteful about it. As such I'm more so frustrated at how that compassion and thought gets 'telephoned' out of the concept by others, who misuse or rip off the same idea. I would love to live in a world where most people making content about how a game's design is 'outdated', equated it more to something that needed refurbishing rather than abandonment :)

I think Bethesda isn't catering for the RP in RPG as much as they should. For example in their responses to player's reviews they said to try creating new characters to experience Starfield in a new way. But if I decide I want to be a pirate commander, I can't. I can be a solo pirate, but I can't have a fleet. I want to be a space CEO, I can't. I can be a merchant, but I can't run a company. I know you purposely chose not to compare starfield to NMS, but I feel there are essential RP things I can do in NMS that I can't in starfield, even disregarding the flying to and landing on a planet and exploring the planet completely without a loading screen. In No Man's Sky I can actually command a fleet of pirates or merchants and send them on expeditions to sell and make money, while being a mayor of a city. Those systems might be a bit barebones in NMS and not as interconnected as they could be, but they are there, I can be the pirate commander, I can be the CEO. I get the criticism of the story and questing aspects, but I'd argue if the RP was more fleshed out, the game as a whole would be a lot better.

@LibraScope

6 ай бұрын

I don't disagree. A recent video I watched by Silvartop discussed how fleshed out the settlement system in Fallout 4 was, since you could create supply lines and things. ( kzread.info/dash/bejne/iG2u1Lmml8afkbw.htmlsi=5adOLikeYsBjCsnK ) And despite the only real purpose of many of the empty planets in Starfield being to plop down settlements, all the complexities of the settlement system seems to have been stripped out. There simply doesn't seem to be much here for anyone who doesn't just want to turn their brain off during fetch quests, and/or engage in Bethesda's core looting/combat loop. Another thing I realized after editing this video, was that (from what I played) the enemy variety is ridiculously low, so combat itself is even more basic than usual. Mirelurks, Deathclaws, Super Mutants, Ghouls... Necromancers, Dragons, Will O' Wisps, even high level Draugr that can use Shouts... these types of enemies all engage in combat differently with you. The combat in Bethesda games is often fairly flaccid, mind you, so they can only offer so much variety. But through ALL of my playtime in Starfield, I ran across only a couple of very basic, hostile forms of wildlife (which was exceedingly rare). Everything else I fought was just angry dudes in spacesuits, all wielding one of the very limited types of guns. I just really don't get it...

@Rusty254

6 ай бұрын

@@LibraScope I never played Fallout 4. Knowing it was there and they removed it really sucks.

@LibraScope

6 ай бұрын

@@Rusty254 Yeah. And to some extent that would be fine, if they were experimenting, and replacing these missing systems with something new. But every time, they just seem to replace missing systems with more empty space. We used to have complex theft and fencing systems. We used to be able to create spells. We used to be able to create settlements and resource management routes between them. We used to have more than just a handful of NPCs with flexible dispositions toward you. We used to be able to raise stats that had mechanical effects rather than just statistical ones. Etc. But all that and more has been slowly weeded out of their games, in favor of 300 hours of content. 500 hours of content. Endless content. Content, content, content. But no longer is it content worth engaging with a lot of the time :(

@mwgyn

6 ай бұрын

​@LibraScope I was so disappointed with how boring outposts were in this game as they were and still are my favorite part of FO4 for the RP I like to do in post apocalypse games. I feel like the quests with the colony organization could have been a really cool town building questline but nah, just a really crappy radiant quest where the quest giver is magically in every bar you are.

@LibraScope

6 ай бұрын

@@mwgyn Yeah, it really was a no brainer to expand the outpost/settlement stuff in the space game filled with otherwise empty but resource rich planets... rather than cutting it back. Heck, they could've even made it part of a major optional questline or something, to add a narrative texture to it, and stakes to what you're building. I almost wonder if that was something they thought about, but they left on the cutting room floor because they were afraid people would be more interested in forging their own identity/path that way, than being part of the main story's little artifact club? That's absolutely just a random guess on my part, but the main questline with Constellation was so devoid of choice in what I played. It felt very "One of us... one of us..." in a way that I think would've been heavily undermined if the player had too many ways to chart their own path... you know... in the space exploration game, lol.