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[KorrZ]

It's actually talked about all the time...you can't go a thread on GAF without it being brought up.

Why doesn't it impact the success of their games is I think the real question you're trying to ask? The answer to that is simple...these are all minor issues that maybe take you out of the immersion for a second or cause you to reload. Realistically though for most people it's not a frequent enough issue to detract from the core loop of exploration that makes these games so fun.

 

[Rushersauce]

Because no other games do what Bethesda games do and until someone comes along and does it better, consumers are willing to tolerate it.

What does Bethesda's game do exactly? Being overly overrated and shallow as a puddle? There are plenty like that

 

[Dreams-Visions]

Their jank is legit why some people I know just pirate their games and buy them years later after modders fix the games. Unwilling to pay for bug-ridden software.

 

[Mivey]

It's not directly related to Beth, but their engine's limitation almost ruined New Vegas for me. I am not sure whether it's just that my playthroughs save file become either too large, or somehow "corrupted" during saving, heard both explanation by modders trying to fix this, but the effect was that the game become increasingly inresponsive, and crashed. Near the end I pretty much had to save every few minutes, and made the last few quests a complete chore.
They should really work on a new engine, pretty much rewriting their current one from scratch. I'm assuming that existing solutions (Unreal, CryEngine, idTech,...) don't cover their use cases very well.

 

[IronicSonic]

Off the top of my head I encountered:
-Getting frozen in place several times
-Getting stuck inside of power armor
-Quest NPC's not activating when completing a simple quest
-NPC's telling me to follow them and they run back in forth with no purpose
-Enemies teleporting into me through geometry to my demise
-Enemies detecting me through walls when sneaking
-Companions constantly blocking me and getting in my way
-Enemies running into walls
-Enemies floating mid air
-Enemies not making a sound when running behind me
-Games failing to load randomly, but loading properly at random
-Hard crashes
-Generally inexplicable performance woes

It looks like a list of things a tester would see in his first playtrough

 

[His Majesty]

Weirdly, I don't rate Witcher 3 as highly as some people here. I mean, it was alright, and it looked pretty, but I never found myself as invested in the game world as I do when I play Bethesda games, and I never really felt any sense of being able to wander off and explore a random cave for shits and giggles.

That's because the two games are very far apart. I would argue that The Witcher 3 is closer to Red Dead Redemption than Skyrim.

 

[Euphor!a]

What does Bethesda's game do exactly? Being overly overrated and shallow as a puddle? There are plenty like that

Well tell me what games do everything Bethesda games do and better.

 

[Quonny]

What does Bethesda's game do exactly? Being overly overrated and shallow as a puddle? There are plenty like that

You can get lost in their worlds and truly feel like you're a part of them. I played Skyrim for over 160 hours, more than I've ever played any single player game. You just get lost in the worlds they make.

 

[Back-In-Black]

CDPR is going to take Bethesda's lunch just you watch

They won't because their games and Bethesda games are completely different. CDPR would be more easily comparable to BioWare but even then that comparison isn't apt since so far CDPR games have fixed protagonists. We've no word if the player will be allowed more freedom controlling their PC in Cyberpunk.

 

[jelly]

I agree and also feel the same about Rockstar games, haven't played GTA V much though but before that, it's not good.

 

[Pantsuit Apologist]

I've been playing Bethesda games since Morrowind and the jank is just part of the charm to me by this point. If my game does break, it's almost always because I did something to it via mod/config editing. I know a lot of people have had issues with their games but fortunately I've never run into anything that put me off from enjoying them.

 

[icespide]

What does Bethesda's game do exactly? Being overly overrated and shallow as a puddle? There are plenty like that

.

 

[Heckler456]

I don't know about you, but I just spent over a hundred hours on Fallout 4, and I thought the value proposition was perfectly in concordence with the 60 euro I payed at launch. If you don't think so, that's fine. You can just not buy the game or pay less later on, like you did. But as long as BGS games sell 12 million copies at launch like Fallout 4 did, then I think it's very hard to argue that BGS makes games that are somehow unfunctional pieces of garbage, Bethesda jank or no.

Also, video games are fucking difficult to make, especially when they're as big and as multi-faceted as most BGS games are. Expecting them to be perfect is a lost effort.

 

[dogen]

What does Bethesda's game do exactly? Being overly overrated and shallow as a puddle? There are plenty like that

Do any other games have as big worlds, with the amount of detail, persistence, and number of things you can do/can happen?

I mean, people bring up witcher 3, but I'm pretty sure the game world is a lot more static, never played it though.

 

[Cartho]

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that, if another company, like Ubisoft perhaps, released games as buggy as stuff like Skyrim then we'd get masses of "Ubishit" type posts.

Part of the issue is that both Oblivion, Fallout 4 and Skyrim are running on that shitty ass Gamebryo based crap of an engine. I SERIOUSLY hope that TES VI is a long way off because Bethesda are actually building a brand new engine for it. Or, even better, sned Guerilla Games lots of candy / money and get the source code to Decima.

 

[Schnozberry]

I welcome it. They need the competition. Once CDPR gets open world combat down, there's no reason why they couldn't take the crown from Bethesda.

Wait, are people under the impression that Bethesda games have good open world combat?

 

[Fahzgoolin]

It's not dismissed, get your head out of your ass and quit making stuff up. And that goes for all of you dudes high on that 'free pass' crap. Same BS every thread, and that's coming from someone who fucking hates 3D Fallout.

It's dismissed in the sense that reviewers and impressions often over look these problems. A lot of games are judged so harshly because of some more trivial "immersion breaking" bugs.

This game has genuinely game breaking bugs and it's well documented online as a consistent issue. These games should be held to a higher standard imo, instead of just saying "oh, well it's a big game you see."

 

[AuthenticM]

I forgot who was defending Bethesda on this, I think it was Brad? But it was pretty much this.

Yeah, Brad is the Bethesda apologist. And Jeff was having none of it. Thankfully, Jeff had his way, and the game was included in the runner-ups for Most Disappointing Game.

Yeah, TC. You should listen to it. Here it is.

 

[Griss]

More fool me for thinking a new console generation would allow them to move to a new engine and fix all of these problems. Fallout 4 was full of the same old jank. I didn't have as bad an experience as you, OP, but I had problems all the same.

I can suffer through it if the game design itself is super-special, but Fallout 4 was anything but. When they announce the new Elder Scrolls if it's the same old Gamebryo bullshit I'll be holding off. Which is a shame as I love the core idea of these games.

Because the worlds they make are big as fuck, and, things are just bound to break in those instances.

I understand the frustration, but, limitations happen.

It's not the world size. Witcher 3 and others prove that size has nothing to do with it.

But what it is in a lot of cases is the sheer range of options when it comes to how you can interact with an NPC and how they can behave, and the same with a bunch of items. A game like the Witcher 3 is scripted in a linear faction. Quests in Bethesda games tend to be more of an organic flowchart, and in the different ways that flowchart connects things can break.

It's a poor excuse, really, but it is one I understand.

 

[Yohane]

Yeah it's awful but even more awful was turning fallout into an horrible corridor fps

 

[Tavernacle12]

I've put at least 100 hours into Skyrim and maybe the game crashed twice? Trying to decorate a house was shit and sometimes my companion disappeared, but I never experienced anything else odd.

So... Like that other guy said, I honestly haven't really noticed the jank. Is this gonna turn into one of those 30 v 60 fps debates where some people act as though anything below 60 fps makes their eyes bleed and everyone else just shrugs and say they can barely notice a difference?

 

[AmuroChan]

It's actually talked about all the time...you can't go a thread on GAF without it being brought up.

Why doesn't it impact the success of their games is I think the real question you're trying to ask? The answer to that is simple...these are all minor issues that maybe take you out of the immersion for a second or cause you to reload. Realistically though for most people it's not a frequent enough issue to detract from the core loop of exploration that makes these games so fun.

Is that really true though? Wasn't Skyrim PS3 unplayable for a large percentage of PS3 gamers?

 

[ScaryShark]

Am I a bad person for kind of liking it, at least in the case of Skyrim? It's one reason my friends and I rebought the special edition. There's something special about a slowdown kill cam with an arrow that completely misses your target.

 

[jacobeid]

I think FO4 is the last time that they'll be able to get away with it. I still enjoy their games though.

 

[Tavernacle12]

Is that really true though? Wasn't Skyrim PS3 unplayable for a large percentage of PS3 gamers?

There was a large bug with slowdown but only if you put hundreds of hours in finding landmarks. Really bad, but I'd imagine most players never encountered it.

 

[Huge Succeeded]

What does Bethesda's game do exactly? Being overly overrated and shallow as a puddle? There are plenty like that

Ugh.

I don't even like Bethesda's Fallout, but if you can't see how Bethesda's approach to their RPGs enables unique experiences and approaches to roleplaying relative to other games that occupy the same space, then you're not even trying. Then again, I could sit here and espouse how, for example, I actually enjoy that items being part of the world really improves my sense of immersion and my ability to roleplay, but one of you jackasses will just reduce that to "ow wow I can stack tea kettles LOLZ", because Fallout threads always suck for everyone

 

[Eumi]

People enjoy the games despite it.

Are you trying to argue that no one talks about it? Because if so you are living in a fantasy world. People shit on Bethesda all the time for it, many just enjoy the games despite the flaws.

If your issue is with others enjoying something you don't, then I dunno what to tell you other than stop.

 

[Griss]

Is that really true though? Wasn't Skyrim PS3 unplayable for a large percentage of PS3 gamers?

I bought Skyrim PS3 at launch and loved it. The issues only manifested when your save file got to about 60+ hours, so many people never even noticed.

It did eventually become basically unplayable, yes. But only after a long while. I believe it was because the save file balooned out as the game tracked the position of all the various objects in the worlds, and as it tried to constantly read this huge file the game slowed to molasses. I might be wrong though.

 

[sirap]

I've put at least 100 hours into Skyrim and maybe the game crashed twice? Trying to decorate a house was shit and sometimes my companion disappeared, but I never experienced anything else odd.

So... Like that other guy said, I honestly haven't really noticed the jank. Is this gonna turn into one of those 30 v 60 fps debates where some people act as though anything below 60 fps makes their eyes bleed and everyone else just shrugs and say they can barely notice a difference?

Nah, it's gonna turn into one of those threads where the PS3 version of Skyrim stutters and drops to 2fps after 25 hours.

 

[AcademicSaucer]

ask Brad Shoemaker

and Austin Walker

 

[Rushersauce]

Well tell me what games do everything Bethesda games do and better.

So tell what do they do, first.

Janky gameplay? Check
Shitty writing? Check
Shitty quests? Check
Inconsistencies in their own world and lore? Check
I can do this all day!

And BTW, putting skeletons in locations doesn't add to "world building", nor do tons of useless pick ups.

 

[funkystudent]

Do any other games have as big worlds, with the amount of detail, persistence, and number of things you can do/can happen?

I mean, people bring up witcher 3, but I'm pretty sure the game world is a lot more static, never played it though.

Is that Bethesda persistence gimmick worth it though?

Does it add ANYTHING?

Like I dont really give the game points because for some reason it saved the dead bodies of the first random enemy I killed 30 hours ago.


And fallout 4 was a dramatically smaller game then F3 or Skyrim so "you can do so much, the game worlds are so big" isnt really a thing anymore. It felt more like Far Cry then a game from the makers of Morrowind.

 

[Strangelove77]

Probably because all those problems you listed don't happen all to one person. I imagine very few people get even a fourth of all those glitches in their game.

Another thing is that people like those games enough to put up with that shit.

And lastly, those games are huge and I can "understand" why they'd have glitches. It's doing a ton of shit at once and there's so many goddamn things happening.

 

[InsaneTiger]

I don't dismiss it at all, it's terrible.

 

[Griss]

Is that Bethesda persistence gimmick worth it though?

Does it add ANYTHING?

Like I dont really give the game points because for some reason it saved the dead bodies of the first random enemy I killed 30 hours ago.


And fallout 4 was a dramatically smaller game then F3 or Skyrim so "you can do so much, the game worlds are so big" isnt really a thing anymore. It felt more like Far Cry then a game from the makers of Morrowind.

I'd absolutely give up the persistence of objects so long as they retained the persistence of NPCs and the complexity of NPC and quest scripting. It's the latter thing that matters, not whether a cup you knocked off a table in some dungeon is still there 50 hours later.

 

[His Majesty]

Do any other games have as big worlds, with the amount of detail, persistence, and number of things you can do/can happen?

I mean, people bring up witcher 3, but I'm pretty sure the game world is a lot more static, never played it though.

The Gothic series

 

[mindatlarge]

This quote from them sticks out in my mind why we tend to give them a pass, so to speak, when it comes to bugs and stuff in their games:

"It's true that the freedom our games offer you can lead to unintentional consequences that are sometimes bad, when the game combines too many unexpected elements at once."

"Given the scale and complexity of the systems at work, especially when allowing you to build your own settlements, we're happy that Fallout 4 is our most robust and solid release ever, and we'd like to thank our amazing QA staff who worked as hard as anyone to break the game so we could fix it during development.

"But a hundred testers will never replicate the many millions playing the game now, and we're hard at work addressing the top issues."

https://bethesda.net/en/article/zoeyjs9KTuse2K2Omka4K/thanks-and-updates-for-fallout-4

 

[Euphor!a]

So tell what do they do, first.

Janky gameplay? Check
Shitty writing? Check
Shitty quests? Check
Inconsistencies in their own world and lore? Check
I can do this all day!

And BTW, putting skeletons in locations doesn't add to "world building", nor do tons of useless pick ups.

No thanks, it's not my job to make your argument for you.

 

[dogen]

The Gothic series

Never played those, but I remember reading that they were pretty buggy too.

I'd absolutely give up the persistence of objects so long as they retained the persistence of NPCs and the complexity of NPC and quest scripting. It's the latter thing that matters, not whether a cup you knocked off a table in some dungeon is still there 50 hours later.

That's probably a more significant part of the issue.

 

[Tavernacle12]

Nah, it's gonna turn into one of those threads where the PS3 version of Skyrim stutters and drops to 2fps after 25 hours.

It definitely wasn't that low (unless it was only after consecutive hours? I honestly kinda forget). I had 60+ hours on it for PS3 and never encountered that bug.

 

[Kaiser Swayze]

I'm going to have to side with the folks who have put hundreds of hours into their games and have not experienced an appreciable amount of bugs/glitches/crashes. Oddly enough, their much beloved New Vegas, was easily their worst for me in the performance department.

 

[Rushersauce]

No thanks, it's not my job to make your argument for you.

So you have none. Thanks

 

[Catdaddy]

Actually, I picked F4 back up to play Far Harbor, and found myself wondering the same thing. In the few hours I’ve played this week (bouncing back to the commonwealth to defend settlements), the game itself feels so clunky. I’ve run into a few bugs most tend to be floating stuff or stuff/enemies clipping through walls/floors. I like the atmosphere, but I’ve wondered why Bethesda seems to get a pass cause if this were Ubisoft or EA – I have the feeling it would get ripped to shreds….

 

[letmetrythisname]

Because they have huge marketing campaigns and people don't like good games.

 

[Huge Succeeded]

Is that Bethesda persistence gimmick worth it though?

Does it add ANYTHING?

In some ways, sure. For example, I've never built an actual home for my character in any other RPG the way I've made them in Bethesda games, for example.

And fallout 4 was a dramatically smaller game then F3 or Skyrim so "you can do so much, the game worlds are so big" isnt really a thing anymore. It felt more like Far Cry then a game from the makers of Morrowind.

Fallout 4 isn't smaller than Fallout 3 or Skyrim. Where did you get that idea? Are you making that up?

 

[prwxv3]

I has not really bothered me before but if horizon is hot shit and does not have much jank then they will need to step up their game. Yes bethasda games are more complicated but they need to improve a bit.

 

[Fahzgoolin]

People enjoy the games despite it.

Are you trying to argue that no one talks about it? Because if so you are living in a fantasy world. People shit on Bethesda all the time for it, many just enjoy the games despite the flaws.

If your issue is with others enjoying something you don't, then I dunno what to tell you other than stop.

I know people talk about this on forums, but I'm talking about mass appeal. I feel like it's a well known reputation of theirs and yet people still flock to their games and gush over them (especially in reviews) and apologize for them.

I don't understand the massive amounts of apologists for buggy software. Bugs happen, but it's just insane to me that people flock to the games in droves and buy them at launch.

I'm of the opinion that their games are nearly garbage without modders.

 

[ughkingdom]

I always felt it was acceptable last gen because Bethesda jank was still better than the jank of most PS2/OGXbox games. But the way Fallout 4 just comes off as a lesser Fallout game with new shaders, but all the same jank, is pretty ridiculous.

How they can't get the game to let me consistently move through the world without falling through objects or getting stuck in every single polygon that isn't a smooth surface baffles me.

 

[Euphor!a]

So you have none. Thanks

None what lol.

 

[Barry Burton]

Yeah, Brad is the Bethesda apologist. And Jeff was having none of it. Thankfully, Jeff had his way, and the game was included in the runner-ups for Most Disappointing Game.

Yeah, TC. You should listen to it. Here it is.

Yep. It's not so much that "making games is hard" and "nobody does what Bethesda does". That's all fine and dandy. Those are the types of games that Bethesda chooses to make. But as such, it's not unreasonable to expect them to make improvements to that type of game over time.

The Austin/Brad defense of "well, this is as good as they can do. They can't do any better" is as absurd to me now as it was then. Jeff was 100% right in this instance.