- cross-posted to:
- games@sh.itjust.works
- cross-posted to:
- games@sh.itjust.works
Bethesda’s latest can’t help but feel shallow by comparison.
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It’s kind of amazing to me that Larian bumped up the release of BG3 by a month on PC because they didn’t want to compete against Starfield (and given the two big patches, maybe they could have put that extra month to good use), and it turns out it was Bethesda that should have been the one worried.
Bethesda games have always been incredibly shallow. How is there anyone that doesn’t see this?
The problem is people defending the games as perfect 10/10 GOTY. And just the general gamers who get super whiny and mad if anyone complains about anything in Starfield, saying that’s just the “Bethesda genre”.
Removed by mod
Idk man, Skyrim felt pretty deep in its time period. I spent so much time becoming a member of the thieves guild, and it felt important and immersive. It’s shallow compared to BG3, sure, but it also came out 20 years prior.
I think it’s the time of development. Bethesda games used to be shallow, but they also came out moderately paced. Now things like starfield take the better part of a decade and it’s still just as shallow, which has some people a bit underwhelmed. Personally it’s been so long since a Bethesda game came out, as a person who isn’t a Bethesda fan to start with, I forgot how shallow Bethesda games were.
I haven’t played Starfield. But I have been amazed at the depth of Baldur’s Gate 3. You can see the handcrafted world every where you look. And this makes a world you enjoy spending time in.
I’m enjoying Starfield far more than I expected.
That said the NPC interactions are incredibly sterile in comparison to the full mo-capped acting of the BG3 NPCs. The Starfield NPCs feel like mannequins just spitting out their lines.
That’s like 75% of the work for BG3. There’s absolutely some work implementing DnD mechanics into code and designing encounters, and obviously the assets for the world have to be created as well, but the vast majority of their time was spent on dialogue choices and designing the story in general.
It’s a great game for it, but we’re a good ways away from being able to do the same in an FPS/TPS with real time combat that isn’t absolutely brutal. BG3 could be what it was in terms of interactions because it was a CRPG. But it had to be a CRPG to do it. ARPG isn’t the term for what Starfield is, but games with reasonably rewarding action take too much work on that element to invest the time into every encounter that BG3 does. Balancing probabilities and maps for encounters for a CRPG isn’t trivial, but it costs way less to do than building out all those mechanics and skill trees into real time physics.
They’re different games with different goals.
It’s not fair for the rest of the Triple A games this year.
BG3 is a hard act to follow considering it was molded from the wishes of players for several years before release.
It’s totally fair. Other companies _could _engage in more dialog with players and take feedback into consideration before release, but they’d rather lean on their prior accolades and slowly leak teaser trailers and whatnot to build hype instead.
It is obvious that Baldur’s Gate 3 was a labor of love, and they really put their all into it.
I think you mean, time for Bethesda to get their act together rather than create trash. I love skyrim, morrowind, and am excited for starfield, but larian is a bit smaller than Bethesda who is owner by zenimax who is owned by Microsoft and therefore has the folks to make awesome things. And yet you have BG3 as a masterpiece. It’s all excuses to me. I wouldn’t call it unfair. I’d call it fair. I’d say larian is even handicapped, and they just kicked the pants off Bethesda.
You’re not wrong in the slightest.
You’d think that Bethesda would spend a few years of the decade they take to make games to be better.
A lot of times those big companies get in the way of making something perfect. They demand unrealistic timelines, shut down more creative paths, and structure a release around their stock performance. Smaller companies have more creative and direct control over their process.
I just skip through the dialogue shit in Starfield. The fun is in the kleptomania dungeon crawling and just turning off your brain for stupid time. BG3 requires brain on. The last good Bethesda RPG that actually had depth to it was Morrowind. I feel so bad for all the younger people that never got to experience the good years of CRPGs. Not that bad tho… They can get their asses on GOG and get the old classics.
If I want a massive rpg with great characters and things to do, I’ll go play daggerfall. If I want amazing space exploration I’ll go play Elite or No Man’s Sky. The idea of any modern Bethesda game just sounds boring to me.
In case you’re interested, let me give you a couple of links:
Miscorsoft ruined it for me. They honestly thought it was a good idea to freeze out a console that outsells them 2:1.
It was a shit move and fuck Bethesda for allowing it.
Between Elden Ring’s UI-free exploration and Baldur’s Gate 3 character interactions, I’m sadly doubting Starfield will do for me.
Yeah I finished my playthrough of bg3 just in time for starfield. Been playing it constantly since. Loving the game. Hard to compare the two as well, they’re rpgs sure but very different. Should pc gamer start writing articles about the lack of base building in bg3?? Bottom line is if you like Bethesda games, you’ll like Starfield. Didn’t like Skyrim or Fallout very much? You won’t like Starfield.
I like Skyrim and Fallout New Vegas, hate Fallout 3, 76, and Starfield. The former are not comparable to the latter.
I am on the same page as you. New Vegas especially since it was really Obsidian not Bethesda and it shows. FNV is in my top 5 of all time. I liked Skyrim enough. Not a fan of Fallout 3, 4, or 76 so I have a feeling I am not going to like Starfield much. Though I am going to give it a try anyway.
This is an interesting take. I adore Skyrim and just yesterday started playing BG3. I am enjoying it, but I never did anything else with DND (parents thought it would make Jesus sad or whatever) and so I am finding it more complex from the get-go than I would like, but I’m trying to learn. I still do feel like I’m missing out on a lot by just going with “whatever” and not putting enough thought into character creation, spells, etc, but it’s a lot to learn and I’m only 1 day in :)
Skyrim, on the other hand, was very easy to pick up, start playing, and just…explore and discover. Because of that, I was eagerly anticipating Starfield but sadly I do not possess the platform required to play it so I am reading the reviews to see if it’s worth buying an entire XBox for. If it’s as great as Skyrim, yes. If it’s meh, no.
So, reviews like this make me wonder if the author enjoys and/or is already familiar enough with the steep learning curve for it not to get in the way and by extension the game itself. Would they have been fine with Starfield had they never played BG3? And is Starfield “simple” enough for me to have a great time, or is it too much of what the author complains about here? - Repetitive quests, limited choices, etc?
It’s a hard question to answer, and the stakes are higher for me because of the console thing. I guess I could send the console back at least if the game isn’t for me? Idk.
You’re doing it right. Just keep playing, and you’ll learn as you go. Don’t be afraid to search for answers online, or compare D&D to BG3. Later, when you understand the system and a spell’s impact to your journey, you can talk to Withers and respec your character, changing your spells and abilities. You can also just use an online guide. Many of the guides have optimized builds that work really well. That’s what I did for my companions, since it was a bit much to learn every single class in one playthrough.
Edit: example, this Astarion build is off the hook amazing!
I feel you. I spent a several hours learning about D&D character creation when I picked up BG3. And I spent a couple more hours crafting a back story that I used to influence my character traits. I’ve never played D&D before, but BG3 is the most fun I’ve had with a game in several years.
Well you’re like 75% of the way to straight out playing DnD, so I highly recommend that if you can find a local group. It’s magic.
I still do feel like I’m missing out on a lot by just going with “whatever” and not putting enough thought into character creation, spells, etc, but it’s a lot to learn and I’m only 1 day in :)
As someone who has run tabletop games including DnD for a few decades, your approach is perfectly valid. While any complex system can be gamed for optimal outcomes, it was designed to be roughly even enough that there are not a lot of choices that penalize you too much as long as you pay attention to vulnerabilities/resistances/immunities which can often be overcome with potions and other magic items.
Do what sounds fun and then have fun is not missing out on anything other than spending time not playing the game just to squeeze out edge cases. Some people enjoy that and thankfully the game caters to both casual players and optimizers.
Thanks for this comment. I seem to have made all the wrong choices. Which can be seen by the fact that every conversation has basically led to me fighting entire towns to such extent that I can no longer find vendors to sell to :p
I was considering just re-rolling and trying harder to please the NPCs. But if the playthrough is salvageable, I will stick it out.
I dunno, sounds like a fun time to me!
Currently on my first playthrough as a team player, but strongly considering going full on antagonist on a subsequent playthrough. Heck, on the first goblin base at the beginning I even saved before entering and after getting buddy buddy with them I saved and then loaded the prior save and just went in crossbows blazing for the fun of it to see how different the outcomes were.
This game is going to be very fun to replay with different approaches!
Lost me at “Disco Elysium had arrived and absolutely blown the doors off the RPG genre.”
I’ve never played a more restrictive game with worse dialog choices.
a) Can’t tell if brain damaged.
b) Can’t tell if drunk.
c) Can’t tell if high.
d) Can’t tell if stupid.No good choices. Thank god Steam let me refund it.
Looked pretty though!
I mean. Disco Elysium is only an RPG in the sense that you get to choose which version of Harry you play. It’s not a blank slate situation where you can be whatever you want, you’re always just Harry. And it is barely even a game, at the end of the day. It’s a novel pretending to be a game.
In terms of RPG design, though, the one thing it truly did put into the forefront was the “fail-forward” ideas present in many interactions, which is something more games should take inspiration from.
Making failure interesting makes the story much more engaging regardless of your choices and your luck by discouraging save scumming and instead letting you feel good about rolling with whatever outcome happens.
I feel like I should go back and play it, but I was defeated by the ceiling fan at the start of the game and decided “Eh I’ll comeback later.”
Turn the ceiling fan off first
I believe it was the lights on it that did me in.
The ambiguity of dialogue choices evens out as Harry recovers from his hangover but never completely goes away which honestly is part of the magic for me. Never being 100 percent certain what he’s gonna do and sort of trying to nudge him along in the right direction is the game. But it’s not a traditional RPG and nowhere near as deep mechanicall as BG3. It’s just really good in it’s own way. I also had a lot of interest in the politics of the game and a personal battle with drugs and alcohol in my life so it may have resonated more with me as well.
See, that was my problem. I would never choose to play as a brain damaged wasteoid, but that was the ONLY choice in that game.
So bad that I went online and was like “Sooo… did I fuck up my starting stats? Is this my fault the dialog choices are this bad?”
Nope, just the way the game is… Time for the game to go away. Which is bizarre because I had heard so much good stuff about it.
Evidently no one warned you how this game plays and what it’s about, and you walked in expecting Mass Effect or something.
That is not the experience Disco Elysium delivers, or attempts to deliver. If you want a game about being the savior of the Eight Kingdoms and immediately bringing your combat might and razor-sharp wit to bear on the scene a moment after you arrive, you can play approximately every other RPG ever.
LOL, I have never heard of Disco Elysium. Must not be my type of game.
If you’re interested in politics, existentialism, the human condition, coping with depression, addiction, trauma and loss and want to read a novel about these themes told through the story-telling medium of an isometric RPG then it is the game for you.
Despite claiming to be an “isometric CRPG detective game about solving a murder mystery” on its About page Disco Elysium is actually none of those things at the end of the day, and if those things are what you want you’ll probably end up disappointed.
Good heavens, I’ve definitely never heard this take about Disco Elysium. It’s universally beloved for being able to explore fascinating and well-written political concepts in a novel world, and it manages to do it in a totally hilarious fashion. Seriously, I’ve never had so much fun trying to smile before.
I expect more from my dialog choices than “You want some fuck?”
