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How did Bethesda go from one of the premier open world studios to a bottom tier open world studio?
- Thread starter Toriko
- Start date
Seriously, the Bethesda bashing on ERA is getting old. Fallout 76 was a mistake, Fallout 4 was decent but not a GOTY like Skyrim was, yes. Skyrim gets criticism as if it was a 2018 release. It sure would be a different game if it was released now, but it's a 2011 game that still has not been replicated. I will not join in any Bethesda hate before their new big RPGs in Starfield and TES VI. One thing I would like to tell Bethesda though: Don't simplify the wrong mechanics. Let me continue to craft my own spells, please! But it's okay that my armor is not blunt after usage, I never found that important etc.
For a start, go and play a modded Skyrim, but invest the time necessary to choose the right one's, then you can see what a 2015/2016-ish Skyrim could be like. In short: great.
For a start, go and play a modded Skyrim, but invest the time necessary to choose the right one's, then you can see what a 2015/2016-ish Skyrim could be like. In short: great.
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Never improving or mixing it up would do it. Fallout 4 is less interesting, less varied and has less character than Morrowind. The games between were a pretty reliable and smooth downward trend. Skyrim, while a great and enjoyable game that I spent 100s of hours in and double dipped on, has one of the most boring and samey open worlds in gaming.
Also Fallout 4 has almost zero gameplay improvements over Oblivion, never mind Skyrim. They just do the same thing every time with the slightest improvements.
Also Fallout 4 has almost zero gameplay improvements over Oblivion, never mind Skyrim. They just do the same thing every time with the slightest improvements.
New Vegas improved shooting mechanics from Fallout 3 and also expanded on the RPG parts. Maybe not to the extent that Fallout 4 improved over 3 but also not to the extent that it warrants the removal of other large chunks of the previous game. The major change in Fallout 4 was actually the base building, but again in terms of core gameplay mechanics it was no different to the turret AI that existed already from 3.
I'll tell you how.
Because when people like me and a few others were critical of Bethesda's engine, bugs and archaic animation, most fans of the company were rushing to its defense, bullying everyone else.
It is the same deal with people who complain now about RDR2's archaic control design. You get treated like some hater and you get those "git gud" preschool comments...
So there you have it now. Enjoy it. Frankly -and sadly- i think that if this game was single player, and had all these bugs, this atrocious performance and the abysmal tech, it would still be lauded as an amazing game. Thankfully it went multiplayer and now everyone notices just how arrogant Bethesda turned out to be...
Because when people like me and a few others were critical of Bethesda's engine, bugs and archaic animation, most fans of the company were rushing to its defense, bullying everyone else.
It is the same deal with people who complain now about RDR2's archaic control design. You get treated like some hater and you get those "git gud" preschool comments...
So there you have it now. Enjoy it. Frankly -and sadly- i think that if this game was single player, and had all these bugs, this atrocious performance and the abysmal tech, it would still be lauded as an amazing game. Thankfully it went multiplayer and now everyone notices just how arrogant Bethesda turned out to be...
I didn't like Oblivion, didn't like FO3, loved FO New Vegas, thought Skyrim was okay.
The best Bethesda games I've played were Dishonored and Prey, aka Arcane Studios.
The best Bethesda games I've played were Dishonored and Prey, aka Arcane Studios.
I was under the assumption that the product was poorly designed and ran bad because bgs wasnt the main dev and it was a smaller staff. If this is the case that it was bgs thats pretty crazy/scary for the future of their products
They made ESO into a gem and it's always online and was supposedly shit at launch. Also look at the OT or people playing it. A lot are actually warming up to it and like some of the changes made. Overall people are having fun and we need to seeswhat content is added. I think the game will get sales as well so overall fallout 76 isn't going to even look like a flop after the holidays.
Is this your first Bethesda game? The last several games they've put out are full of bugs that never get fixed.
That's a design choice. The fact that you think it's a technical flaw is baffling when it does keep track of everything you've done, or else there would be nothing for the blood moon to reset. They do it because they designed their enemy camps to be reusable, and because this:
Is not necessarily a good thing. I don't really need to see that for the rest of the save file, nor is it particularly realistic that I do. I had assassins try to kill me in a city once early in a save, and 70 hours later they're still there. Why? I don't want them there, and it doesn't feel immersive for everyone to act shocked at their corpses every day without anyone moving them (hell, they should've decomposed by now).
Personally I never saw how they were ever considered to be a premier studio in the first place. Even in their prime they were renowned for broken promises in announcement pitches and releasing games as a glitchy, unplayable mess. As a bonus they were the instigator of useless, overpriced DLC and even made an attempt to monetise community mods!
It's incredible to me that they had managed to preserve a positive reputation up until recently.
It's incredible to me that they had managed to preserve a positive reputation up until recently.
They're definitely in decline this gen, lets see how Starfield performs next gen.
Far too early to tell that, man. Fallout 76 was a side project made by a bunch of people new to BGS after they failed making BattleCry. Going from BattleCry to something like Fallout 76 on an engine not designed for it was probably a bad idea from the get-go.
I still think the main team that made Fallout 4 did a decent job. There are a lot of weaknesses that have been discussed endlessly. Still, I found it to be a lot of fun and greatly enjoyed exploring its world. Far Harbor was great. Starfield will be the game I judge them by. They clearly need to take a massive step forward tech-wise, or the the good things about their games won't be enough to keep them relevant, imo.
One thing they absolutely need to get away from is radiant design. Its awful, always has been, and always will be compared to handcrafted quests and stories. It can be a minor, complimentary addition to a game, but you can't have your quest logs stuffed with radiant quests.
I still think the main team that made Fallout 4 did a decent job. There are a lot of weaknesses that have been discussed endlessly. Still, I found it to be a lot of fun and greatly enjoyed exploring its world. Far Harbor was great. Starfield will be the game I judge them by. They clearly need to take a massive step forward tech-wise, or the the good things about their games won't be enough to keep them relevant, imo.
One thing they absolutely need to get away from is radiant design. Its awful, always has been, and always will be compared to handcrafted quests and stories. It can be a minor, complimentary addition to a game, but you can't have your quest logs stuffed with radiant quests.
Well isn't the main studio in Maryland? So if it was done in Austin then it is not the main team?
And I don't get why this is a bad sign. People love their doom and gloom even when they have 0 understanding of the development.
I don't replay games I find are mediocre/trash even if there are good bits. They get forgotten. If I replay a game at all it's cause I overall enjoy it and can go back to it (and yes, Bethesda games are one of the few I find I do go back to).
They went backwards while everyone else moved forwards.
When Morrowind came out the competition was games like GTA: Vice City, Mafia, Wind Waker, Diablo 2, Dungeon Siege and Neverwinter Nights. Good games, no doubt, in their day.
Today's competition is Red Dead Redemption 2, Spider Man, Breath of the Wild, Hitman 2, God of War, Divinity: Original Sin, Horizon Zero Dawn, Assassin's Creed something-or-other, etc.
Fallout 4 and 76 are pale imitations of how brilliant, innovative and ambitious BGS were with Morrowind. The rest of the industry stepped up.
When Morrowind came out the competition was games like GTA: Vice City, Mafia, Wind Waker, Diablo 2, Dungeon Siege and Neverwinter Nights. Good games, no doubt, in their day.
Today's competition is Red Dead Redemption 2, Spider Man, Breath of the Wild, Hitman 2, God of War, Divinity: Original Sin, Horizon Zero Dawn, Assassin's Creed something-or-other, etc.
Fallout 4 and 76 are pale imitations of how brilliant, innovative and ambitious BGS were with Morrowind. The rest of the industry stepped up.
You know, I'm just going to point this out. I love New Vegas, it is my favorite game of all time. I agree Obsidian really improved on where Bethesda is weak.
That being said I think you guys forget 3 is the more popular game and more people will say they liked 3 over New Vegas (doesn't matter if you think they're wrong, the simple fact is more people liked 3 if you don't look at just the gaming enthusiusts). People who prefer a good rpg will like NV better, but I think you forget we're a little more niche than who Bethesda is targetting overall. And when they only put out games every 4-5 years, they need them to appeal to more than a small market.
Anyways, despite it not being an RPG I'm enjoying 76, bugs and all *shrug*. I even like the story (better than 3 and 4 anyways so far, but where I like Bethesda's writing is finding stories about the pre war through notes and such, I think they do a good job with that and this game is more focused on finding the story of the past through notes than any current story where it's more open what you do in the current story).
I agree it has issues (Some one on r/fallout at level 87 wrote a really good laundry list of things that are done wrong and it's not focused on the bugs either, that's just one of the bullet points). But as he pointed out they aren't unfixable and the game at least at low levels is pretty fun.
If anything shows how flawed the gaming media is compared to other industries it's this. This would be like giving suicide squad a 75+ on rotten tomatoes.
Yeah, honestly don't care if they change their engine. I think it allows for a lot of potential to do what they could do well and unique compared to other developers. But yes, I think they have other things they should be focussing on. Better writing, more flexibility in how you solve problems, they are pertty "lazy" when making puzzles. Witness in skyrim the puzzle to get into a dungeon was always the same exact puzzle. Once you did it once you knew how to solve it every time. But a lot of devs do this. Nintendo was better in having several different types of puzzles and sometimes varying them but even they, at least for the korak seeds, would repeat types of puzzles (it's one of the things I wish Bethesda would learn from BoTW). But Bethesda would sit there and rely on one single type for all the game. It isn't a game breaker for me but it would be nice ot have more variety of puzzles and actually have to think more on each puzzle rather than go, oh this, just do this.
I mean I love Bethesda games, they make my favorite games. But I also thinkt hey have a lot of places they could improve. But bugginess and jankiness is the last on that laundry list and bugs me the least honestly. I'll take it over them changing something in their engine that I love about it or them spending time fixing that instead of improving content.
I'm not a big fan of jank, but it's not what puts me off Bethesda games. It's the art direction, both for TES and Fallout. It's a totally subjective thing, but it does nothing for me and it hasn't seen a significant shake-up since the Morrowind days.
These are also titles which have been played for hundreds of hours by millions of people so maybe they actually are just good games.
The fact is that tons of people love Bethesda games.
The idea that those games are subpar or that as a whole they're a bottom tier developer is laughable.
In the past 20 years they've released 6 titles. Only one of which has been poorly received. The rest have generally been acclaimed by both critics and players.
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Their games have always been jank as fuck. The problem is that people would deal with the jank and bugs because Bethesda were the best providers of open world games. That was in 2008-2012. Now, it doesn't cut it anymore. Games like Witcher 3, Breath of the Wild, and RDR2 exists and have far less jank to waddle through. 76 is more jank than usual and due to the game being online only, system overhaul mods aren't going to save the game on PC this time around.
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None of those games do what Bethesda games try to achieve though.
They're all great in their own right but beyond having an open world they're hardly comparable.
Their games are janky messes with 0 gameplay. How are they good games lmao,
Not a chance. To suggest that the only reason people tolerated BGS games is because there weren't many open world games at the time is absured. BGS open world games are still incredibly unique and popular for that reason. No other studio puts out games like they do. Witcher, BotW and RDR2 don't come close to providing the same experience. Hell, even 76 isn't the same experience as their traditional single player RPGs even though the share some similarities.
It seems it's impossible to escape ridiculous hyperbole in Bethesda threads.
This is basically me as well. It grew stale. Fallout 4 felt stale.
Because they're not actually bottom tier. Fallout 76 for as bad as it may be, was always a spin off. They haven't released a great game since 2011 so they aren't top tier anymore but they certainly aren't bottom tier unless Starfield and Elder Scrolls 6 get similar reviews to Fallout 76.
ZERO GAMEPLAY
I don't even know what the means but it's probably legit.
I loved Bethesda last gen. Fallout 3 and Skyrim are both really, really great games. Even with their jank and glitches (and I played them on PS3).
This gen, they've been nowhere comparatively. Fallout 4 didn't capture me in the way 3 and Skyrim did. Fallout 76 looks like a mess, and before long, we're into next gen.
I don't know if they're "bottom tier", but when the competition is Horizon and Zelda (from what I've played), they're certainly a rung below the best.
This gen, they've been nowhere comparatively. Fallout 4 didn't capture me in the way 3 and Skyrim did. Fallout 76 looks like a mess, and before long, we're into next gen.
I don't know if they're "bottom tier", but when the competition is Horizon and Zelda (from what I've played), they're certainly a rung below the best.
New Vegas is quickly taking over 3 in popularity. Gamespot did a poll on their website/in one of their videos and New Vegas won by a landslide. At this point, I don't think you'll find many people that played both but preferred 3 unless they are incredibly casual. Most gaming outlets openly admit New Vegas was better.
OT: Bethesdas open world output this generation has been poor. They've stagnated since Skyrim which was 7 years ago. They have a ton of ground to catch up and we'll see how close they get in presentation to stuff like Assassins Creed with Starfield.
Those memorable quests and locations are written and directed by the same people I assume? Which always strikes me odd that people complain about the writing just based on the main quest which frankly have always sucked in BGS games, even in New Vegas which is somehow supposed to be above the rest.
I also found the witchers completely underwhelming main story wise.
I still haven't finished Skyrim nor FO 4 but I frankly felt I didn't need to. Enough roleplaying and stuff to do for hundreds of hours with the world itself.
Those games you mention are leagues better than Fallout 76 in terms of quality. Like, not even close.