STARFIELD: I didnt buy a Bethesda game to not have any bugs

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > STARFIELD: I didnt buy a Bethesda game to not have any bugs

Father Wendigo: Sep 28, 2005; This is, sadly, more important to me than bettering myself.

STOP RIGHT THERE, CRIMINAL STAR-SCUM!

https://twitter.com/diversion_inc/status/1695830758760354270?t=uNFPDpOQClfK_kiPpo5qsQ&s=19

# ¿ Aug 28, 2023 18:56

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# ¿ May 22, 2024 06:04

Father Wendigo: Sep 28, 2005; This is, sadly, more important to me than bettering myself.

Azhais posted:

There will be no NPCs and you will get all your quests by discovering notes scattered around the world

They already achieved this with Fallout 76.

Elder Scrolls 6 will have no quests, buildings or items. Players will have to mod in their own quests using assets purchased from the ~~ATOM~~ CHIM shop. The only way to rank up the bimonthly battle pass is to produce more new mods.

# ¿ Aug 31, 2023 17:35

Father Wendigo: Sep 28, 2005; This is, sadly, more important to me than bettering myself.

Lil Swamp Booger Baby posted:

Everyone always talks about the Adoring Fan but IMHO Fargoth is far worse. I truly hate him

Why? Farg is content to live his life in Startertown Neen after you give him his ring back.

# ¿ Aug 31, 2023 17:43

Father Wendigo: Sep 28, 2005; This is, sadly, more important to me than bettering myself.

Rinkles posted:

Is this in reference to something specific?

Not necessarily, but have you ever heard of Dragon Age 2?

# ¿ Aug 31, 2023 21:55

Father Wendigo: Sep 28, 2005; This is, sadly, more important to me than bettering myself.

https://twitter.com/LaurakBuzz/status/1697550554937868760?t=f9mxu3WP3vg9-iJhj_R5Jg&s=19

Brogeoisie posted:

Lmao the lack of ability to fly your ship meaningfully is loving hilarious after all their hype

I remember reading that Beth struggled for over a year to make spaceflight something more than no-clip walking in a void. When several devs voiced concerns that it wasn't very fun and the team was spinning their wheels, management went ballistic and reassigned them to Fallout 76.

In conclusion: sometimes nothing is better than something objectively worse.

Father Wendigo fucked around with this message at 13:56 on Sep 1, 2023

# ¿ Sep 1, 2023 13:51

Father Wendigo: Sep 28, 2005; This is, sadly, more important to me than bettering myself.

smoobles posted:

This is every Bethesda game. I think they bring in voice actors off the street or hop into developer's cubicles and ask them to read some lines real quick

There was a flap a few years back about how the VA for Kellogg in Fallout 4 had no idea he was working on a Fallout game until he had nearly finished his lines.

https://www.eurogamer.net/the-voice-actor-who-didnt-know-he-was-working-on-fallout-4

I don't think their expectations of voice director duties have evolved much since Linda Carter voiced every orc and Nord.

quote:

In fact, Farley would only find out he'd been working on Bethesda's extremely popular post-nuclear RPG series because one of the other actors on the project, who also hadn't been told what the game was called, managed to figure it out while reading the script and then let him know.

This sounds bizarre, doesn't it? But having recently spoken to Keythe Farley and also another actor by the name of Phil LaMarr, who you might know best for voicing Samurai Jack, this happens to a lot of performers if they take on video game roles. This is perhaps one of the more extreme examples, but there's a feeling that actors are too often being kept at arm's length by game publishers and it's leading to some fairly major issues.

# ¿ Sep 1, 2023 14:32

Father Wendigo: Sep 28, 2005; This is, sadly, more important to me than bettering myself.

GreatGreen posted:

Todd Howard you god drat dork.

I've been watching gameplay videos and have noticed that when you fire a gun, each round is actually comprised of two projectiles. One is an invisible hitscan projectile that actually registers hits and causes damage and NPC hit reactions, and the other is a slow rear end tracer round that doesn't actually cause any damage, it's just supposed to looks "cool" as it flies through the air, taking MUCH longer to reach the NPC than the instant hitscan bullet.

You know how in bad wrestling matches, you see a punch thrown and it obviously misses, but the other guy still staggers and acts like he got hit? That's the exact effect this has on gunfire. You shoot the gun, the NPC instantly reacts and you see blood splatter, and then the tracer round slooooowly exits the gun and starts to fly at the NPC and doesn't actually arrive at the NPC for a quarter of a second or so.

Lol get hosed, Todd. You made firing guns feel stupid and disconnected in your space gun firing game. Hopefully at least some eventual mod should probably be able to delete player tracer rounds altogether and fix the issue.

In the future all guns are actually invisible lasers, like the heart attack gun that the CIA uses. They still project a bullet hologram and spray the scent of burnt cordite to preserve are heritage. :911:

# ¿ Sep 1, 2023 17:17

Father Wendigo: Sep 28, 2005; This is, sadly, more important to me than bettering myself.

Is the $5 mod to fix the frame rate issue in the game's mod store, or a nexus site or whatever?

Either way, it's a really bad look to have to pay a third party to fix the new game you just bought.

# ¿ Sep 3, 2023 00:37

Father Wendigo: Sep 28, 2005; This is, sadly, more important to me than bettering myself.

Panzeh posted:

it's wild how variable the perks are between weird diplomancer stuff and then "you need this for a basic game function" type stuff, and a LOT of +10% damage to a thing

That's a knock-on effect of throwing the entire skill system into perks back in Fallout 4, followed by 76 diluting the perk pool further with dozens of ’+X damage when _____' perks. It sucked then and it sounds like it still does now.

That said, it's supposed to be a series of speed bumps to artificially extend your playtime - meaning it's working as intended.

# ¿ Sep 5, 2023 02:28

Father Wendigo: Sep 28, 2005; This is, sadly, more important to me than bettering myself.

Big news! Starfield DLC CONFIRMED for 2022!

_{Wait that can't be righ}

https://twitter.com/UESP_net/status/1704140832813498866?t=r2rQi7aG3tU2x7KMuF7TLw&s=19

# ¿ Sep 19, 2023 18:24

Father Wendigo: Sep 28, 2005; This is, sadly, more important to me than bettering myself.

Emil had an infamous not-TED Talk with some pretty great moments like 'You could write the greatest story ever, and players are just going to skip conversation to pick up more bullets. So why bother? I don't!' and 'This four dialogue option tree looks pretty cool, huh? Well let me tell ya, it's a bitch to code and write dialogue around! But it looks cool, and that's all that matters.'

If you look at what he says and use the past 3 games he's credited as designing (Fallout 4, 76 and Starfield) he is either burnt out or checked out.

Tankbuster posted:

On one hand emil pagliacci is a hack. On the other hand he wrote himself into fallout 4 as a boston gift card scammer who calls you are retard under his breath.

I thought that was supposed to be Pete Hines.

# ¿ Sep 20, 2023 17:05

Father Wendigo: Sep 28, 2005; This is, sadly, more important to me than bettering myself.

Tankbuster posted:

what unacceptable poo poo?

I assume that's related to the omission of visual options like FoV and brightness, but it could also be the new lows Bethesda is achieving in writing, gameplay mechanics & design. Or the excessive overreliance on a relatively small pool of canned PoIs to flesh out a mostly empty map.

ODB seems pretty soured on the game if their posts are any indication. Assuming they bought the game, it might not hurt to put it down for a year or two before coming back. Bethesda's 'We plan on supporting this game for years to come!' line was word for word what they said to try to calm the masses after Fallout 76's disastrous launch, maybe they'll patch in some more PoIs or refine it so there aren't dino bones on our moon.

# ¿ Sep 25, 2023 14:07

Father Wendigo: Sep 28, 2005; This is, sadly, more important to me than bettering myself.

Archonex posted:

Ironically, with how much hard work in updates that 76 has gotten Starfield is going to need to catch up to it in terms of fun factor. 76 has gotten an absolute ton of work put into it and is pretty fun now.

The initial plans for the big Hail Mary relaunch of 76, Wastelanders, were actually scrapped and restarted with heavy assistance from Microsoft Studio code wranglers. Toddy said so himself!. The gameplay was/is still terrible because Bethesda tried to make an MMO off of a janky engine built for a single player experience, but even attempting something big after two years of disaster was unheard of outside of Final Fantasy 14.

But the primary purpose of 76 was always to serve as an asset farm for 3 and New Vegas remasters in the F4 engine, and it continues to be one to this day. The Season Pass/MTX store have already had all of the Merc and Raider armors as skins, piecemeal set pieces like the giant T-Rex, Securitrons as vendor units, NCR doughboy armor relabeled as 'Bomb Disposal Suit', and roman gladiator costumes.

Starfield doesn't have the advantage of an IP people already care about, and any new assets created won't translate well to either of Bethesda's other IPs. A major rework isn't out of the question, but it needs a profound overhaul mechanically and narratively and I'm not sure if Bethesda has the capability. I'm not sure if Microsoft has the patience, either.

Tankbuster posted:

Don't think their DLC really has ever been minimal.

I'll assume you chose to forget that half of Fallout 4's DLC Season Pass was padded with workshop bullshit.

Father Wendigo fucked around with this message at 05:38 on Sep 26, 2023

# ¿ Sep 26, 2023 05:36

Father Wendigo: Sep 28, 2005; This is, sadly, more important to me than bettering myself.

Gonkish posted:

I just wish that the Fleet missions weren't structured like "Here's some piracy stuff that you can totally do, but also if you do it we basically skull gently caress your character progression to death and then piss on its corpse. Have fun!"

I mean, sure the bounties I understand. But XP deficits? Not XP earnings reductions, mind you, they straight up TAKE AWAY XP when you serve time, and if you don't have the XP to pay up then they put you into a deficit... and all of this stacks. Plus, being friendly with the Fleet means that one of the major human "enemy" factions becomes permanently friendly to you... so... like... what?

They put all these piracy and smuggling systems in place and then said "NO. DO NOT DO THIS. BAD. BAD PLAYER. BAAAAAAAAAAAAD." It's one of the sorest points of the game, for me. I thought a Fleet run would be cool for NG+ and I was planning on it, but reading up on it... why? Why would anyone do that? Why are the penalties so insanely harsh when the benefits are minuscule?

It's an easily solved problem, too. Just have IntSys' premier hit squad, the Tactical Underworld Response Division, pop up every so often saying ~~"The Caeser has marked you for death"~~ "Stop right there, criminal scum!". There's a brief firefight with enemies always slightly above your level, the bubba always drops something worth dragging to a merchant, sometimes your pirate buddies are around to have your back.

# ¿ Oct 6, 2023 13:48

Father Wendigo: Sep 28, 2005; This is, sadly, more important to me than bettering myself.

I said come in! posted:

This is actually news to me, I had always thought Todd Howards team was not at all involved with Fallout 76. I have tried to play the game multiple times, even after the big updates, and cant get more than an hour before I bounce off it. F76 is dreadfully terrible.

There's been several news pieces on it, but Bethesda has been suffering through a management crisis since at least Fallout 4's development. Management is comprised of old devs with zero management skills and an inability to directly say 'no,' while the new blood with a functional understanding of creation engine capabilities gets ignored and either burns out or gets laid off.

Microsoft stepped in and was the driving force behind 76's turnaround expansion, and one of the first things Bethesda had to do as a MSX subsidiary was a firing the 16 year company veteran who was the project lead on 76.

# ¿ Nov 30, 2023 16:17

Father Wendigo: Sep 28, 2005; This is, sadly, more important to me than bettering myself.

Magmarashi posted:

What turnaround expansion was that?

Wastelanders, which introduced human NPCs, several quest lines and began balance overhauls.

It didn't necessarily make the game good, but what it introduced was less bad than the game elements that came before it.

# ¿ Nov 30, 2023 16:28

Father Wendigo: Sep 28, 2005; This is, sadly, more important to me than bettering myself.

Magmarashi posted:

And they did this a year before actually acquiring Bethesda...how?

Todd asked very nicely!

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/bethesdas-todd-howard-called-phil-spencer-after-the-difficult-fallout-76-launch/1100-6488720/ posted:

When Fallout 76 released with its numerous issues, Bethesda's Todd Howard made a phone call to Xbox boss Phil Spencer that ended up helping to turn things around.

During the Bethesda-Microsoft briefing on Thursday, Howard recalled that Spencer was one of the first people he called when things went south with Fallout 76. Spencer directed Howard to some people at Xbox who gave Howard and his team at Bethesda some good advice about how to turn the ship around and get Fallout 76 back on the right path.

Another interesting twist comes from the leaked FTC case emails, where Spencer is contemplating shutting down 76 altogether.

Father Wendigo fucked around with this message at 16:52 on Nov 30, 2023

# ¿ Nov 30, 2023 16:47

Father Wendigo: Sep 28, 2005; This is, sadly, more important to me than bettering myself.

Azhais posted:

Even some of the usual bethesda mod creators have said on discord that they'll "probably" get to it eventually but they currently have no motivation to play or mod the game. I imagine once Maxie finishes their material compiler some of that malaise will mysteriously vanish, but watching the coding discords has been fairly grim this time around

Bethesda also just reopened the 'paid mods' wound by pushing an update to Skyrim Special Edition that rebranded the Creation Club to Creations, which puts paid mods and free stuff into one big bag. On top of that, people were complaining that it also somehow broke scripts for at least a few popular mods or load organizers.

In summary, now's probably not a great time to talk about mods.

# ¿ Dec 9, 2023 02:45

Father Wendigo: Sep 28, 2005; This is, sadly, more important to me than bettering myself.

Ugly In The Morning posted:

The pet asteroid is the closest this game came to having any charming moments.

Don't worry, they'll bring it back as a selling point of the first or last premium-priced DLC.

# ¿ Dec 12, 2023 19:16

Father Wendigo: Sep 28, 2005; This is, sadly, more important to me than bettering myself.

Khanstant posted:

Apparently pretty hard since Star Citizen can't do it with infinity years and a bazillion dollars. I didn't play them at the time and they don't look worthwhile today (lumping in basically all the old space games that I assume were the siren song to trick SC backer types sharing the same general space fantasy). I am skeptical they are fun if it's not 20 years ago and not using a 20 years younger version of a less spoiled imagination willing to fill in all the gaps.

Doesn't seem like anyone's sorted out vast space and the niche most into what there is of it seems to want things most people are never gonna be interested in doing, while also not being entirely clear on what they themselves want - let alone if ever actually getting what they think they want would ever be a good game.

Skies of Arcadia managed to pull off exploration via three-dimensional skyship travel back at the turn of the century.

# ¿ Dec 28, 2023 00:22

Father Wendigo: Sep 28, 2005; This is, sadly, more important to me than bettering myself.

space uncle posted:

Starfield 2 will be set in the year 2875, described as Elon-punk

This is just The Outer Worlds with the caveat that every item has the chance to explode or catch fire without notice.

# ¿ Jan 10, 2024 19:27

Father Wendigo: Sep 28, 2005; This is, sadly, more important to me than bettering myself.

DancingShade posted:

It's like that flopped Saints Row reboot and the expected Jesus patch that would save everything only it never came.

Fortunately Bethesda still has enough interia from Skyrim to make those sales. We can expect at least another decade of winning products. Maybe two!

To be fair to Volition, the SR reboot was thrown together in about 2 years to Starfield's 7(?) years in the oven.

# ¿ Jan 13, 2024 18:19

Father Wendigo: Sep 28, 2005; This is, sadly, more important to me than bettering myself.

https://twitter.com/BethesdaStudios/status/1763595776553374046?t=TydA_r-nm7AJeAnZ5DKpwg&s=19

You know things are going great when they lead their big patch announcement with Photo Mode improvements.

# ¿ Mar 2, 2024 00:54

Father Wendigo: Sep 28, 2005; This is, sadly, more important to me than bettering myself.

webmeister posted:

I actually enjoyed taking photos in Starfield, occasionally you’d come across a cool poi or backdrop and think it was worth photographing.

That’s also how I found out that
a) the photo gallery is hard-limited to 50 photos, and
b) it doesn’t save to your Xbox photo library

So when you uninstall, all 50 of your photos get deleted like jpgs in the rain

If it's like Fallout 76, it will also delete all photos every major title update.

# ¿ Mar 2, 2024 16:15

Father Wendigo: Sep 28, 2005; This is, sadly, more important to me than bettering myself.

Maybe they're pausing the monthly patch releases to focus on the Fallout TV show & HD patch for F4.

# ¿ Apr 15, 2024 21:14

Father Wendigo: Sep 28, 2005; This is, sadly, more important to me than bettering myself.

MechaSeinfeld posted:

This is an honest question and I’m not trying to just take a steaming dump, but is the game actually salvageable by dlc/update akin to cyberpunk? Like there’s no way they’re suddenly going to figure out how to make the planets fun right

Devil's Advocate: Sure, but it would have to be a self contained campaign that functionally replaces the big, empty lovely game with a small but curated and somehow compelling game. Like everything takes place on a new space station map that has its own branching campaign that can also change between universes.

# ¿ Apr 24, 2024 05:30

Father Wendigo: Sep 28, 2005; This is, sadly, more important to me than bettering myself.

Ursine Catastrophe posted:

Even then it wouldn't "save" starfield as a game any more than far harbor "saved" FO4's writing, it'd just be a digression into better content for a couple hours before returning to the base game and being depressed about the wasted potential

that's also asking for A Lot out of DLC, "a better quality of side story/quest" is a lot less time-consuming to do retroactively than "oops poo poo we need to try to fix all the game mechanics to be not poo poo"

A couple of hours of better content would give the player a positive experience with Starfield, which is something that doesn't appear to be happening now. It could give the franchise a hook or two to try and hang a do-over sequel somewhere down the line and bring some value to the IP going forward.

# ¿ Apr 24, 2024 15:50

Father Wendigo: Sep 28, 2005; This is, sadly, more important to me than bettering myself.

1glitch0 posted:

A Starfield sequel wouldn't realistically come out until 2040 at which point no one will probably care about video games anymore what with the famines, heat, and mass migrations.

A Starfield sequel by Bethesda wouldn't come out until 2040. A Starfield sequel by one of Microsoft's subsidiaries could come out in a few years.

We'll probably already have a few of those things before then, but the premium consumer should remain unaffected.

# ¿ Apr 24, 2024 20:35

Father Wendigo: Sep 28, 2005; This is, sadly, more important to me than bettering myself.

Cyrano4747 posted:

I doubt it's a work ethic thing so much as them realizing that they hosed the goat on release and DLC sales are going to be anemic at best.

I'm guessing that was the primary reason they announced they're throwing it over to PS5 eventually.

# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 14:21

Father Wendigo: Sep 28, 2005; This is, sadly, more important to me than bettering myself.

No pressure, Todd. Ignore the giant wicker Master Chief being built out in the parking lot, it's just part of the Shattered Space DLC release party.

https://twitter.com/IGN/status/1787845956077068715?t=DfKAKom3qnfnHGf7BxFMrg&s=19

# ¿ May 7, 2024 15:46

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# ¿ May 22, 2024 06:04

Father Wendigo: Sep 28, 2005; This is, sadly, more important to me than bettering myself.

Jack B Nimble posted:

Can they go in your ship?

Can they go in your ship's storage?

# ¿ May 15, 2024 20:25

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