So are TES games about to change fundamentally?

[davidwalshireland]

I wonder could part of the reason Bethesda delayed TES6 and created Special Edition be to begin getting players and the community

ready for changes which will be major features in the future games...?

For instance an in-game microtransaction store providing various kinds of DLC and perhaps other services too

They may also be planning building-in a co-op feature; this would incentivise micro DLC such as skins etc

What I mean is the nature of TES games and perhaps Fallout too may be about to change quite a bit

 

What do you think?

[bobofudd]

As far as I understand, Bethesda released Skyrim SE because they had already ported the original to practice using the updated engine that was created for Fallout 4.

 

We don't have TES6 yet because they have other projects they want to do first. It'll be a while.

 

As for Bethesda games changing, each one they've released has been different. They aren't afraid to try new things. I expect the next one to be a little different as well. Now whether or not they can perfect the things they introduce remains to be seen...

 

I think M'aiq summed it up best when he said he thought it was best to adventure alone. No one likes fighting over the treasure.

[NeirDead]

Another reason we don't have TES6 is that they don't want to split the player base for Elder Scrolls Online. That game will have to run its course before we see a new ES game. Just my opinion

[NikitaDarkstar]

Could be. If CC is well received I wouldn't be surprised if future titles will also be supported by it. Personally I just hope they take some time to update and stabilize the Havok engine (assuming they continue to use it, but that seems likely) before their next big project release no matter what it is, because as hilarious as some of the bugs are having the same bugs over and over again is losing it's charm.

 

So you know, I'd rather see them actually polishing up the features they do have before introducing more things to the mix. But I'm sure we'll find out what's going on at some point (I am sad that they delayed TES6 though).

[Mudran]

This question was here so many times... :smile: But it is actual again with every new feature added I guess.

I think it is a new engine and decision what will be there implemented and what not. Those new releases of Skyrim and Fallout 4 for switch and VR point at that. So for developing team it can be question like implementation of support VR, switch, and so on, for publisher it could be CC. It is getting clear that the video made for PAX a year or two ago with Todd Howard explaining that ofcourse they are working on TES VI, but before that there will be 2 major project and he is not talking about games, was the most true. Maybe their PR didn't even like this, but who knows.

 

And I agree that it will be different Bethesda. If I would be dev I wouldn't be even happy about this - I would be happy to create something new, original,with the goal of high quality, and watch players enjoy it, but it looks like everything will be spoiled with money greed in the future :sad:.

But it is still too early to say what will be in their shop and how it will influence their new game. They are still testing things and it didn't get its final form.

Edited October 9, 2017 by Mudran

[metaphorset]

Let's talk about the "new engine" thing from a view of a programmer, shall we?

• Until Oblivion Bethesda licensed GameBryo, which means they could add things to it by using its API. Somewhere before Fallout 3 they bought the code for it (which at that time was possible for many other game engines as well, btw.) This allows them to modify and expand the code in a way that goes way beyond what's possible if you just use the API.
• In modern times (aka at least since the early 2ks) there is no such thing as "the game engine". What people call "the Skyrim engine" is more or less a couple of "engines" put together, where every part could be replaced by something else (like it should be in any half-decent piece of software). For example you have a graphics rendering engine that itself is divided into several parts, like a rendering pipeline a post processing pipeline and so on. Some other parts would be "the sound engine" or "the AI engine" (if we want to stay with the simple engine terminology) and most possibly a dozen more. Furthermore you can integrate middleware like SpeedTree, Havok - you get the picture.
• "The Engine" is just one problem they'll have to face sooner or later. Another problem is the editing tools, which - putting it kindly - are a freaking mess. Everyone who ever tried to create a mod knows that. Even the simplest of things need way too much steps in and outside the CS to accomplish, every step could produce bugs and that's a freaking nightmare for a solid production pipeline.

Now, let's take a look at the real problem. As pretty much every other company Bethesda hopefully takes a close look at what the competitors do. You know, things like voiced protagonists, the "games cost 60 Dollars" thing or - hey! - microtransactions. In form of a club.

Until Skyrim their Games more or less were the poster child of modern open world RPGs. Pretty much everything they did since the early 2ks lead to a change in the gaming industry. Fast forward 15 years and along comes an obscure Polish Company that had moderate success with two games and pushed them from the throne with their third installment. Not only that, they continued to deliver with two massive expansions from which the first one has one of the best story lines (not only) I have ever played in any RPG.

 

So here's what I think is the real reason we won't see a new TES game before 2020:

I believe they already had plans for TES VI but ultimately scrapped them because they felt that the concept wasn't good enough. Even if they tell the truth and there is no such thing as TES IV in production, it's not an easy thing to recreate the success of Skyrim, because there will be competition.

The whole microtransaction thing will not go away, as well as the voiced protagonist we got with Fallout 4 (what a nightmare if you think about the spanking they will receive if they deliver only two voices for the two genders across all the races).

 

What I think they should do, if they want to compete:

• They definitely should change the whole "community will fix it" attitude. After Skyrim Fallout 4 was the first Bethesda Game I haven't bought on Day 1. I even went so far as to wait one year and grab it on the Steam Sale. Why? Simply because I wanted to play the game instead of waiting for the CS to fix it or have s.o. else to fix it for me (at this point you might already have figured out that my first Skyrim experience was everything else but great. Thinking back, it wasn't even ok or acceptable) .
• They should hire some good writers. Not only for the main quest but also for the side quests. People are tired of flat fetch quests. Take a close look at the Witcher games.
• Quit overusing "the epic moment". Having a Gate to Oblivion or a Dragon every 10 or 20 Days keeps the moment epic instead rendering it into a boring grind for EP.
• Spend more time in QM. Broken Quests are very annoying. They really are.
• If they want to give the players the freedom to choose between First Person and 3rd Person view, they should keep both consistent and make both at least decent - or, if they don't want to put the effort into it scrap one and concentrate all the work on the other (which I personally would consider as a mistake, because it's not really that much more effort if done right).
  (Oh, and also climbing ladders without loading screens is a thing one should expect from a next generation game. It has been done already in 1996.)
• They should stop copying stuff from other games, especially if it doesn't make any sense, because the games are completely different. Nobody asked for a Fallout Souls no-safe feature in Fallout 4's survival mode. Regarding common safe game corruptions, CTDs and connect those to the Settlement Build Mode this was the most stupid idea in a game I've come across for a very long time.
• They should stop binding every faction into the main quest. It's not good for replayability. I don't want to join the Mages and the Thieves and possibly half a dozen factions just because they want me to see every "awesome place or quest" they created. At least not in a single playthrough.

Edited October 9, 2017 by metaphorset

[Mudran]

I agree with this, esp. I don't understand their sudden desire to copy from other games - voiced protagonist is a tool for story driven games - bethesda world is so far away from that. And that was atleast good feature from other games, but they used some features which were even criticized in other games in Fallout 4.

 

What do you think would happen if they would create Creation kit with graphic overlay and simple sub editor, so every dummy (like me) would be able to use it? I think that could be revolutionary and also truly Creation club. They would have to charge some money for it, but the real question is - really, what would happen if every child could create his own race, quest, zone, even console user and it would be allowed for PS4 because it would be autodebugged?

I was thinking about it that it shouldn't be too hard to do it - creation kit is not really so far away from graphic overlay. They could use their safe debugging scripts used for main quest only for every quest anyone would create automatically. So it would be safe if the original content would be locked and players would work with a simulator. If the editing tool would be divided to building and character tool, it could be created freely, without the engine saving process and then not willing to change it, to simple editor where nothing would be saved in engine, but only with finalize button it would finaleze it, which would do all the right step by step creating as the proces of validating and uploading to the game. Also it could means no more overloaded creation tool used in-game if you could simply create anything in simulator and them upload it?

Question is if players, who can use the old kit, wouldn't feel somehow bad, but I think it would be better for them even, because they could work faster now and still there should be that old tool for some more sophisticated work.

 

But I'm afraid there is someone not really nice in Bethesda publishing, so or they wouldn't do it, or they would make it spoiled somehow :sad:

 

And Witcher 3... the best part is combat for me, I mean the whole game is an artistic masterpiece, but the combat, esp. with the mod changing rolls to piruetes... that is like a death dance and with their combat music... It is hard to go back to Skyrim fighting even after that - only for other weapons absent in W3.

Edited October 10, 2017 by Mudran

[metaphorset]

@Mudran, creating a graphic overlay for creation kit would fix exactly nothing, as long as the underlying tech isn't fixed. Even if the underlying tech would be fixed, creating "easy modes" is everything else but trivial. I also totally disagree with "easy modes" for advanced technology in general. They tend to result in mediocre outcomes at best more often than not. In the end nobody would be truly happy. I've had this whole discussion for example within the Blender community many many times.

 

As for the story-driven game thing... Bethesda games were far away from that. Not anymore, they are. Skyrim as well as Fallout 4 pretty much would work without the open-world scenario, because nearly everything is somehow tied to the main quest. If it was not for the side quests (which are quite forgettable in many cases, anyway) and the crafting grind you could pretty much build them using linear level design.

 

About the Witcher 3 combat system... it surely looks pretty, but I really wouldn't mind the more "realistic" approach of Skyrim's dirty and clunky system. That is if the game would be built around it and if the AI would play along from the start. The whole fighting mechanics are tied to the animation system, which I also covered in my rant. If Bethesda would adopt the Witcher-like Bolschoi ballet fighting style, they most possibly will drop the first person mode. And I surely am not the only one who would miss that.

 

Ultimately Skyrim's combat system suffered from the same problems that were already present in Morrowind. Hack, slash and shoot, no weapon art required. Every weapon type feels the same. Bows, crossbows, long swords, short swords, all kinds of axes and warhammers ... they are all a bland mass of clunky tools without any variation. You can use all of them right level one, they look the same, no matter how much you improve them and on top of that their damage doesn't vary much because of levelled enemies.

Edited October 10, 2017 by metaphorset

[Mudran]

Thanks for reply, I had the impression others would disagree, only I couldn't say why, because I know only that it would be good for me. But maybe it wouldn't be possible without too much of sacrifices of what could be created with such tool - so in reality it would looks like sims 3 or something.

 

About story driven games - I was really thinking about it and I realized that for me the best story in open world games is the story which would tells me more about the pieces of the world and drags me into it by allowing me to become part of it like guilds. It is the same what kids do - like they want to be a doctor, so they need some introduction about what doctors are, what is their background introduced with some story about doctors, what they can and cannot do, what are their problems and then they want tools for doctors, so they can roleplay it according to that story they have heard. So the world has to be realistic atleast in that part with background story.

In Skyrim it was partially, but that is the reason why I liked it and why it is unique - you could play blade, greybeard, soldier, all factions had their enemies you could join in your next playthrough, also you could be farmer, hunter, miner - the team behind really created very diversed gameplays. That is unique for me - I didn't see this in any other game except Morrowind, which was built upon that, some other games had this partially like FNV, but Skyrim took this to the very basic levels, only it was more shallow. I just wish they would cut off all the pointless quests like I lost my helmet kind of, where they send you to some cave, so you could see how great that cave is, but the problem is there can be much better reason to go there, and they have it in bounty quests, so no point for that. But some factions have to be connected to the main quest, if the main quest is big enough, but not too much - that is something I disliked in Fallout 4 - there are raiders everywhere, but not a single quest about dealing with them (in the main game), I mean good quest - not just clear out this area. It was all about the institute, all the factions dealt with institute, but if I would be such faction member, raiders would be much bigger problem for me, then I would deal with Institute. The explanation was, that raiders, as well as supermutants, gunners are mindless beasts, so you can only shoot them - I didn't get this (also I can understand players who are OK with this if shooting only is what they like, but they have to understand why some other players couldn't play Fallout 4 really and didn't like it - originally really good RPG franchise). So I was glad that in Skyrim there is a war, but you don't go around for your dragon hunt and basically nothing else, you can be pure soldier, which is not part of the main quest, but at 1 point it is still connected - that was ok for me. So linear is more true for Fallout 4 I think.

When I see witcher stories I can see that it does have this background stories which describe the world for you very well and they are connected, so it is story driven game, but it is open world at the same time. I just miss the possibility to play all the other characters introduced there.

In other story driven games I miss usually more detailed background - they care about the story and nothing else - the possibility to be part of that. I feel like in a cinema watching movie or just reading a book, that could be good, but I play games because I want to be part of that world and do something there.

 

About combat - I'm not an expert, but Witcher's combat really surprised me - I just started to see the possibility what could be done with dynamic animations and doubled actions - only I wish they would have better keys - like hold key for strong attack and not 2 keys, or double tap for dodge for all dirs, so I could have free shift for sprints. the piruetes are just perfect for witchers blade mastery :smile: But truth is it wouldn't work for 1st person.

 

That is far away from the original discussion, but there is nothing to discuss - I think it is obvious and the old fans are not really happy about this, but if Bethesda will do the same like Zenimax did with ESO crates, it doesn't matter anyway, they will just laugh at all unhappy players - they will try to buy all important youtubers, and put down all opposition - by proclaiming the opposite they say, doing pointless price reductions and so on, so they will get all the good PR.

And then with a new game, there will be shop already with new customers already ready for that...

Edited October 11, 2017 by Mudran

[CosmicArrow]

Yes and not just TES. The gaming industry as a whole right now is treading dangerous ground because they keep making games more and more expensive. Sorry but most AAA games stopped being $60 a long time ago and are now hard to even find at $90 because they ship the base game bare bones then release the other parts as dlc. The only thing that made base FO4 even bearable was the modding community because the world felt so empty. Most people I know said the dlc made it a lot better and didn't notice that they paid $110 for a full game.

 

I believed a video game crash wasn't possible with a lot of buffers in place like indie games, steam and gog sales but now I'm not so sure. At the very least the AAA gaming industry will crash because no reasonable person is going to spend $90-150 for one game then god knows how much because of microtransactions. There are not enough whales out there to sustain that much expected cash flow.