Experienced modders: Can this game be fixed?

[GeevilEnius]

So I think my experience of this game is shared by many: I anticipated it with barely contained excitement for years. I spent ridiculous amounts of time playing Skyrim, and a "Skyrim in Space" sounded like the coolest game ever invented. But since release I've had to painfully slowly realize that Starfield isn't just a little disappointing, it is pretty terrible.

 

If you don't agree with that statement, that's fine. I'm really just talking to the people who do, and I have a question.....

 

Can this game be fixed by the modding community? Should I hold out that hope, or just give up and grieve what could have been?

 

The reason I ask is that, even with the very dedicated and talented modders out there, the problems with this game seem too fundamental. Of course, as with every Bethesda game, it has shipped extremely buggy. I know that will be fixed. But here's what I mean:

 

1)The endless expanses of randomly tiled boring worlds. They claimed there are 1000+ worlds to explore, but if 2 worlds are 99.3% percent the same, are they really 2 different worlds? I don't think so, and by my sciencey mathematicalish calculationating there are approximately 1.13 worlds in the whole game, and that one world is pretty boring after about 5 minutes. It's like piling into a car, driving 1000 miles to Yellowstone, only to get out and find an endless flat linoleum tiled floor. Not exactly worth the 5 light years of grav driving. And all of the locations on those worlds are mostly literally identical to locations on other worlds. Just randomly placed identical copies of the same thing. This is not exploration. This is boredom on a screen.

 

*spoilers follow!*

 

2) In a similar way, the main quest is so dull. Fight your way to an artifact, dig it out. Go to a temple, fly around, get a power. That's it. Over and over again. At the end of which you get to choose whether to continue to explore the same boring universe or go to a different nearly identical universe and start the same process again. Wow.

 

Skyrim had a charm and fun at it's core that inspired modders to fix all the bugginess and ugliness and endlessly create new content and a better experience. They weren't expected to literally create a game from scratch.

 

But maybe, just maybe, is it possible.......?!?!?

 

 

 

[DeckardKain]

YES, we can fix this, and it's probably the intention. It's almost like they made a blank canvas for us to paint on.
I think that's really smart because it's kind of impossible to make a game that fits every taste.
For example, I really don't agree with you on exploration. I believe barren rock worlds should be barren and boring. When you find something, it should feel rare and special.
However, now we have a modular game that everyone can tune to their taste with modular plugins. We both can have what we want!

The only thing I believe is hard to fix is the storyline, as we don't have access to the voice actors.

[SKKmods]

Teh game is 1000% better if you never enter the Lodge library to avoid the awful Constellation quest line and just OpenWorld it without idiot companions.

[fraquar]

Teh game is 1000% better if you never enter the Lodge library to avoid the awful Constellation quest line and just OpenWorld it without idiot companions.

 

You should trust this - right here.

 

That said, I think it is extremely impatient to expect modders to "fix" a game weeks or even months after release.

That takes time to reverse engineer, create the tools needed to do proper modding.

On average, don't expect a game to be seriously modded in the first year - in any kind of quality quantity.

Bethesda could "speed this up" immensely by releasing the CK on game launch, but they choose not to.

Edited October 14, 2023 by fraquar

[DeckardKain]

 

Teh game is 1000% better if you never enter the Lodge library to avoid the awful Constellation quest line and just OpenWorld it without idiot companions.

 

You should trust this - right here.

 

That said, I think it is extremely impatient to expect modders to "fix" a game weeks or even months after release.

That takes time to reverse engineer, create the tools needed to do proper modding.

On average, don't expect a game to be seriously modded in the first year - in any kind of quality quantity.

Bethesda could "speed this up" immensely by releasing the CK on game launch, but they choose not to.

 

Yes, but we will probably do it faster this time. Maybe that's why they wanted to stick with the old engine.

It's so well documented now that even ChatGPT knows how to script Papyrus.

We have done it all before, and we have decent tools that just need to adapt.

 

I don't know why they didn't release the CK right away, but they did the same with Fallout. Seems to be the MO.

Maybe they want to solidify the foundations before they let us loose.

[fraquar]

Bethesda is sticking with the old engine because they are lazy.

End of story.

They know they can make millions on marketing, because people are sheep.

They are sheep herders, not game developers anymore.

 

Starfield isn't my cup of tea, but Elder Scrolls and Fallout are.

I've lost hope they can create a game worthy of those titles anymore.

Scary, but true.

 

I'm not sure how people sign on to work for Bethesda anymore save the money.

They have virtually no creative juice anymore.

[DeckardKain]

Bethesda is sticking with the old engine because they are lazy.

End of story.

They know they can make millions on marketing, because people are sheep.

They are sheep herders, not game developers anymore.

 

Starfield isn't my cup of tea, but Elder Scrolls and Fallout are.

I've lost hope they can create a game worthy of those titles anymore.

Scary, but true.

 

I'm not sure how people sign on to work for Bethesda anymore save the money.

They have virtually no creative juice anymore.

You know that doesn't make sense, right? Because with Unity and Unreal, they could have picked up either if they were lazy and produced greater results.

I am quite convinced that they stuck with the old engine to make us modders more comfortable.

[fraquar]

Grafting onto an outdated (proprietary I might add) engine that isn't capable of dealing with the demands of the 3rd decade of the 21st century?

Not using engines that are more capable of doing the job that actually needs to be done in modern gaming?

Would you call that smart? Innovative? or Lazy?

 

Personally, the former (for all the wrong reasons) and the latter scream to me.

 

But who are we fooling right? When you can make nearly 10 figures on game launch and not innovate, why bother right?

Edited October 14, 2023 by fraquar

[gnarly1]

I am quite convinced that they stuck with the old engine to make us modders more comfortable.

If you'd thought about this for a moment, you would've hopefully realised how naive it is.

 

No game development company would make a decision that has such a massive impact on productivity and profits on the basis of modder comfort.

 

More than likely the reasons are some combination of:

 

1. Economic - not wanting to give away 5% of turnover to use someone else's proprietary technology, especially when what they've built internally provides more or less what they need at a fraction of the cost

2. Risk management - not wanting to rely on someone else to provide the platform which essentially generates the entire revenue of the company i.e. the game engine

3. Provides opportunities for team members to develop skills that are valuable across a variety of tech disciplines.

 

Can you imagine Todd or the VP - Finance presenting to a group of shareholders that the dividend is going to be 5% less than last year because they were concerned about modder comfort....

[DeckardKain]

 

I am quite convinced that they stuck with the old engine to make us modders more comfortable.

If you'd thought about this for a moment, you would've hopefully realised how naive it is.

 

No game development company would make a decision that has such a massive impact on productivity and profits on the basis of modder comfort.

 

More than likely the reasons are some combination of:

 

1. Economic - not wanting to give away 5% of turnover to use someone else's proprietary technology, especially when what they've built internally provides more or less what they need at a fraction of the cost

2. Risk management - not wanting to rely on someone else to provide the platform which essentially generates the entire revenue of the company i.e. the game engine

3. Provides opportunities for team members to develop skills that are valuable across a variety of tech disciplines.

 

Can you imagine Todd or the VP - Finance presenting to a group of shareholders that the dividend is going to be 5% less than last year because they were concerned about modder comfort....

 

Hello Creation Club.