Skyrim with actually good melee combat, much greater magic variety, companions who are smarter and not suicidal, horses who can move around with logical sense, more biome variety as much as I love what's already there, factions that don't end in you ruling all of them at once...
Turns out Skyrim gets a lot right but there are tons of things that could be much better.
I just wanted Skyrim where I could invite a few friends to come along for dungeons. Then they made Elder Scrolls Online as though that was at all the same thing.
That would indeed be pretty cool, I'd love to see if they go that route for TES 6. Clearly the FO76/ESO routes are not what that same customer base wants, for different reasons.
ESO is a fine MMO, but it's absolutely an MMO and not a multiplayer TES game. FO76 is a skeleton of a Bethesda RPG but isn't formatted at all how what the average Bethesda fan would want to play. It's strange they went both of these routes before attempting what people have been asking for and even trying to make themselves for so long.
It's a bit of a shame Starfield won't include multiplayer either, but it's hard for me to complain since I don't have friends anyway.
Tell me you played 30 minutes of 76 on launch and never touched it again without telling me you played 30 minutes of 76 on launch and never touched it again
Yeah 76 is pretty rad and based now. There was an actual dialog I had with an NPC who wanted me to go find gold and I was telling them this unquenchable lust for money caused the whole damn apocalypse in the first place.
I actually have not even played it, but I've heard it's been much improved, correct me if I'm wrong though it's still different from literally Fallout 4 with other players. For example, are there multiple long faction storylines, large populated cities with many side quests, a few radio stations, caravans, morality or faction reputation, bobbleheads, basically every major and minor feature in a standard Bethesda Fallout.
If it's been updated enough times and in the right directions to include all that stuff, then awesome. I was by no means saying it was a bad game, I just want to know if it's seamlessly a Bethesda title through and through with other players or if it's still Fallout in a different direction.
Are you able to enjoy the world privately with only players you choose without any DLC or microtransactions based restrictions on construction or storage, mod support so long as each player maintain the same modlist, etc.?
I played it recently and it is still a clunky half broken mess with friends. Setting up three camps was a pain and the one quest we tried to do failed to spawn the final objective except for the party leader, and none of the rest of us were able to complete it.
I played around 20 hours of it at launch, and it was bad. Not just in all the hilariously broken things that were memed all over the place back then, but the fundamental concept of the game just didn’t quite work.
I think Dwarf Fortress is going to hold the crown for ultimate fantasy world simulator. I don’t think ES6 will allow for systematic breeding and killing of mer-children for their valuable bones.
I think if we are strict on the definition, BG3 is definitely the better roleplaying game. The Bethesda games are better at the go here and do anything,but their world connections has always been far more gamey that what Larian is doing. I think if Bethesda really wants to make ES6 the undisputed best again, I think they need the NPCs improved to at least Oblivion standards, better town to town(power Dynamics), better so that remembers what you have done contextually, and then probably 2 or 3 very well fleshed out companions, and a really good story which I think they have set up already. Their gameplay is undisputed imo, but their reason to care about the world can sometimes be a mile wide but an inch deep.
Only in the context of the specific set-pieces provided within the game though. You have no way to work outside of the very specific rails that BG3 provides for interacting within the game.
If Skyrim is a mile-wide but an inch deep, then BG3 is an inch wide but a mile deep.
I think that’s part why BG3 has taken off so much, honestly. We’ve had so many open world games with ridiculously large maps that a lot of people are disillusioned with the lack of depth.
BG3 with its narrower scope makes for a much deeper experience. I would love a game that can do both depth and breadth, but these games already are a massive undertaking.
Bethesda, everything doesn’t need to have the biggest map ever, it just needs to have good writing and replayability.
Like New Vegas has a map 3 times smaller than fallout 4 & 76 and I’m still enjoying it almost 15 years later. (I’m not knocking those other games, I’m just saying map and game hugeness isn’t what matters.)
You don’t need the biggest map ever to make a good game. You do, however, need the biggest map ever to make a good Elder Scrolls game. People referring to BG3 don’t really understand the essence of the Elder Scrolls, a vision the series has pursued all the way back to Arena.
…well when you put it that way you are right. Elder scrolls games are known for having enormous expansive maps, criticizing that is like criticizing mario for having too many coins or something haha
You don’t need the biggest map ever to make a good game. You do, however, need the biggest map ever to make a good Elder Scrolls game.
No you don’t. The evolution of the Elder Scrolls series proves that, as the map size has been massively reduced. The Skyrim map is extremely tiny compared to Daggerfall.
i genuinely cannot imagine that it’ll be anything other than a continuation of the bethesda model: simplify and just add more environments to keep the players inside the basic gameplay loop of “go here, do thing, return, reward, go here, do thing”
76 has actually made me pretty hopeful for the direction of bethesdas games- it includes a return to older style dialogue, introduced more skill checks and the like, featured a more cohesive world and generally seemed like it went back on the simplification a fair bit
starfield similarly seems to be more of a return to form for them, focusing more on character builds, an expansive trait system etc
it is also being worked on heavily by the lead quest designer for far harbor iirc, which is absolutely a good sign and is setting my hopes high for a deeper, more complex and more forked main questline than Bethesda usually goes for
Skyrim but no skill tree, too complicated. Player can buy every weapon and spells and skills level are just damage boost. Bethesda adds a 3rd person view during conversation and a weird standard male voice so that any chance of roleplay is dead. All cool spells are removed and players can only use destructions spells. No more illusion or alteration funny spells. Only fireballs and bolts exist now. All guilds quests have been removed in favour of radiant quests. Everything is randomly generated and sold as replayability and “every playthrough is unique”. Main quest is 3 quests long because people didn’t finish skyrim main quest. Everything is level scaled. They learned from skyrim and oblivion mistake so now every enemy is scaled but 10lvl below you so you never struggle against anything (no more oblivion sponges!). Every location can be fast traveled to from the beginning of the game because the world is too big. Spears have been added to the game but it’s an official creation club mod only. The stamina bar has been removed for “faster paced” combats.
This article is almost entirely non-news. ES6 is a long ways off, was likely announced prematurely, and they have nothing new to say.
The only nugget in the article that seemed relevant to me was that in the engine work for Starfield, Bethesda was mindful of including future engine requirements from ES6.
The rest was just what you’d expect the ES6 project lead to say: “We want it to be amazing, of course!”
It was only announced because people were foaming at the mouth for any info at all, so they said “Yes, it is coming.” and people got bent out of shape that it isn’t already out even though they never hinted that it was soon.
They the. Said nothing for half a decade. Now starfield is coming out and is shipped from their perspective so he’s on to his next sale. Simple as that. See you in another 5+ years
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