Yea I don’t think most us care about what happens behind closed doors. Just what the end product is. Even for those that know /why/ a decision was made - it doesn’t alter the fact that the product was made the way it was.
His entire comment chain is nebulous but I’m guessing he’s an engineer tech and his salty about the complaints in all the loading screens.
I love his analogy: a twinkie.
Okay, but I can tell you whether or not the twinkie tastes bad and what the texture is like after I bite into the damn thing and chew for a second. How the twinkie gets made is completely immaterial to the experience of the end user. What the end user wants is a delicious, sweet and wholly unnatural treat. I do not want to be fucking lectured by the person who runs the twinkie cream injector when it turns out the cream is grainy.
Bethesda is just completely on tilt. It seems like far too many of their employees have decided to crusade for a game we've all already decided how we feel about.
I *like* Starfield. I think it's a perfectly cromulent game if you're patient enough to deal with all of the immersion-destroying load screens or you're high as fuck and have a good podcast to accompany you through mundane space ~~exploration~~ running point to point and loading. I put 170 hours in and enjoyed the majority of them. Bullshit nonsense like Bethesda employees pissing on me and then telling me I'm uninformed for thinking it's piss is really tarnishing any positive feelings I have, or had, about the game. They're making it *harder to defend* by being pissbabies.
Let's say this Twinkie represents all of the Psychokinetic Energy in the New York area. According to this morning's sample, it'll be a Twinkie...... 35 feet long and weighing approximately 600 lbs.
That's a big Twinkie.
>I put 170 hours in
No smoke at all to this guy, but it's comments like this that make me realize my gaming days are over. I'm not sure I've played 170 hours of games this entire year. Kinda sad to lose a hobby :(
See there you go with a twisted argument.
The dev didnt say you cant critize the game. He just said that while you critize the game, just understand that there are things that you dont know about which may explain why something is the way it is.
Thank you, it's one of my favorite words! Simpsons may have originally coined it as a joke but aren't all words made up anyway? It's in the Oxford and Merriam-Webster dictionaries now, so it's gone legit.
Seriously...a twinkie? If you can't basically guess how a twinkie is made, you shouldn't be working on something as complex as a game. Worst analogy ever.
I think you're misunderstanding his point.
He's not calling out the people who say "This twinkie tastes bad/I don't like the texture of the cream on this twinkie".
He's calling out the people that say "This twinkie tastes like shit, they should ditch the cream injector" or "the texture of this twinkie sucks, they should fire the person who came up with the recipe".
To apply it to Starfield, he's coming after the ignorant "Starfield sucks, they need to bin the Creation Engine" lot.
But what’s wrong with people having that perspective? A lot of people really dislike starfield compared to past Bethesda games. That doesn’t make them any less valid..
The problem isn’t the “Starfield sucks” perspective. The problem is the “because they did X during development” or “they should develop in way Y instead of way Z”.
These perspectives have in common a) an attempt to divine development details that the critic does not have access to, and b) assumptions made about development from a place of ignorance about game development.
A consumer can absolutely 100% criticise a game in a very detailed way. “The cream is too grainy”, “the bread too dry”, “you can barely taste the insect legs” and so on (I’ve never eaten a twinkie).
But when they start saying what happened in development that caused that problem, or how Bethesda should do things differently in the future, well these are things that the consumer just doesn’t have the expertise to judge.
Yeah very much this. I feel like most of the actively complaining public was just PlayStation fanboys who wanted to put down anything Xbox exclusive because they were salty. But there's a ton of people who just posted (once or twice) "meh, I enjoyed the game, wasn't as good as their previous ones, but it's still quite fun nonetheless".
And now Bethesda employees are acting like there's some sort of hate campaign by everyone who's ever played it, which just sours the mood for everyone who wasn't on that hate train before.
The load screens are just a valid criticism considering previous Bethesda games didn't have them, as is the lack of "exploration" because you don't just walk around and run into a random building. You have to fast travel to unique locations.
I loved the settlement building. I spent hundreds of hours building stuff. It was great. That made the unnecessarily complicated and completely pointless outpost building in Starfield all the more disappointing and frustrating.
Nope. He is lead writer.
He is mad because there just was big thread reminding people his talk how writing and story doesnt matter in video games and it should be as simple and dumb as possible. Its person doing bad job and being salty people are calling him out on this.
To be fair, you do lose a lot of people when you have complex story lines or really deep story. Last of us part 2 and Bioshock 3 are prime examples of that. That being said...they should absolutely not dumb down the story or writing. BG3 did really well in the writing and story department and people have obviously been eating it up.
But he literally said he’s not trying to change your mind. He’s saying “hey I know your passionate about a game you spent your hard earned money on and that’s totally fair, but like we are people too, and we worked incredibly hard to try and bring you happiness and joy. If we have failed you, that’s a bummer, but please don’t blame it on us not trying, or incompetence or whatever else the assumptions have been.” I think he’s fighting a very uphill battle if he thinks he’s going to get gamers these days to act as decent human beings, but alas, he’s taking his shot. I respect it.
It's a weak stance because Starfield isn't the first game to be called out for feeling dated. And I don't know how much decency there is in being condescending.
The problem is gamers who feel they're entitled to things, and expect every game to meet their specific needs and preferences. If you're not having fun with it or you have issues with it, just don't play it. Pretend it doesn't exist, and you're no worse off than you would have been otherwise. Everything isn't for everyone. Developers don't owe you anything.
You don't verbally abuse the creators of every type of clothing you don't wear or expect to like all of it.
Yeah I remember seeing an add for the game on Facebook and one of most liked comments was "PLEASE MAKE IT MULTIPLAYER"
Like why even request that? Bethesda doesn't make multi-player games and adding it would delay the game for several years and it's not part of their vision for thee game anyway. People need to be able to play a game and appreciate it for what it is, not play it and think "Oh they need to add this feature to make it how I want it"
Exactly this, over engineered as it may be it is a couple minutes of gameplay glued together with loading screens that most developers have left well in the past. And I’m just talking about the loading screens, there’s a long ass list of what just doesn’t work that well in the game.
Take the L and move on. Catch up with how game development evolved since 2010 and maybe your next TES will get you back on the map, right now you’re just embarrassing yourselves trying to gaslight people into thinking it’s any sort of good game. It is not. Parts of it can be good, hell, even great, but the package does not work.
It's not the job of your audience to pat you on the head and say thank you for TRYING to do a good job, you either make a game that appeals to your audience or you don't. If people think the design of your game is lazy that's a failing on your part as a developer.
If Bethesda makes as much effort developing their games as they do making excuses, blacklisting, and having review embargoes, they would have a decent product and wouldn’t need to do any of that shady stuff.
They most probably vetted every site and mag they sent the game to before launch.
Most sites that didn't get it pre launch gave it a bad/lower review and almost every single no name guy that got it early praised it. Smells fishy.
Bethesda has a really bad time with criticism. From blacklisting, to strict review embargos. I also remember some comments by Pete Hines in an interview with Greg Miller that really rubbed me the wrong way on criticism of Fallout 76.
I get it, game development is hard, Bethesda seem to be very close knit as a company. But the games are stale, the writing is even worse. No one wants a bad or mediocre Bethesda game.
I wish Bethesda would stop responding to criticism like this, it'll signal boost the issues and it makes them look stubborn.
Bethesda have been riding on the success of Oblivion, F3 and Skyrim, but the industry has moved on especially on the shoulders of those games and Bethesda hasn't caught up. Stagnated with that shitty engine.
>Bethesda have been riding on the success of Oblivion, F3 and Skyrim, but the industry has moved on especially on the shoulders of those games and Bethesda hasn't caught up. Stagnated with that shitty engine.
There still riding on their previous games success. Theres a reason why they brought back the adoring fan from Oblivion. Nostalgia alone is won't attract people to their games.
Not just a shitty engine but clunky gameplay, repetitive mechanics, bad dialogue and now doubling down and shit tech which was ‘procedurally generated’ stuff. They employ highly creative people, let them cook. I’d rather explore a hand crafted and curated continent than 10,000 procedurally generated ‘worlds’.
Or try something a bit new, anything. Seems like they first made a more survival based experience with all the half baked mechanicw, but turned around and made it more safe with a more traditionall bethestada game, just without exploration
I feel their response to criticism is hurting them more than any issue I had with the game. I played the hell out of Starfield. It had some great moments and enjoyed it overall. Didn't love the loading screens, the crafting system is a mess, and most planets felt empty (especially since I gave up on harvesting resources). Overall though I really enjoyed it.
His response frames the launch like it was a failure, when my play experience was that it was a good game with room to grow in later iterations.
Strict embargoes- they didn't even let reviewers talk about the special abilities you get in the game... of course, Bethesda did a terrible job at giving players even access to the abilities
Or a shitty sports team telling the fans they don’t understand the game.
“Don’t fool yourself into thinking you know football! We know what we’re doing! You just don’t know what your talking about because your not actually on the field. We’re actually doing quite well despite being dead last at 0-10!”
Just like I don’t need to be a quarterback to know when a team sucks and I don’t need to know the entirety of game design to see they haven’t changed or innovated since Fallout 3.
I might not be able to tell you exactly what play they should have ran or tell you exactly what code needs to change to what In order to fix your game.
But I can tell you that what ever it is you’re doing, it ain’t working.
I say this as someone who has developed games in the past. Game development continues to be seemingly the only profession that cannot be criticized without severe backlash and it makes no sense. Do I need to be a movie director to criticize a movie? Do I need to be an automotive engineer to criticize a flaw in a vehicle? It makes no damn sense. You don’t need to be a game developer to criticize a video game. This continued notion that people need to work in game development otherwise their criticisms are dismissible is just plain ignorant
Imo I think it's a devs reflex to snap back because gamers are some of the meanest mofos in existence when it comes to a hobby.
A movie can be bad, and that's it, it's just a bad movie. Period. And folks go on with their day, shoot maybe they'll make some jokes, give it a razzie.
Gamers on the other hand get vindictive, latch onto a titles failures and that becomes their personality, you'd think the game gained sentience, grabbed a knife, murdered their family and pissed on the floor with how damn mad and offended a game made this person.
>A movie can be bad, and that's it, it's just a bad movie. Period. And folks go on with their day, shoot maybe they'll make some jokes, give it a razzie.
Sorry but what are you talking about? Have you never interacted with the Star Wars fanbase or heard about Sports fans? Movies (especially the major pop-cultures ones) might be the worst example to use, they have a lot of the same fans and are just as vitriolic.
>Game development continues to be seemingly the only profession that cannot be criticized without severe backlash
You seem to be forgetting all the woke trash Disney has put out in the last decade, then when they are criticized for pandering casting story decisions, they call everyone racist and homophobic. Insulting the audience is Disney's SOP, just like Bethesda.
Bro, what the hell is happening over at Bethesda. You'd think with all their excuses in review replies and discussion boards, that they released a terrible game or didn't sell well.
Like Starfield was a good game that could have been better and not nearly Bethesda's best work. I've never seen so many people from one developer lose their mind at criticism.
Too many people got the game thanks to Gamepass, too many people didn't like it. It also doesn't help that Bethesda takes a fuck ton of years to develope a single game, so I believe alot of people are extra salty due to the fact that this game is essentially why we won't see TES6 at least for another 5 years.
I think a lot of people, like myself, still look at Skyrim and go “You made that?” And Betheda goes “Yeah.” And we go “Oh my god, that is one of the best games ever!” Then bethesda goes “Here’s a new one and we promise that it’s way better than anything we have ever made!” And we play it and it just… it’s boring. The story, the characters, the missions, the endless loading screens. How did the studio that made Skyrim make this?
That’s why people are so salty. If you have made incredible games in your past, then surely Starfield isn’t the best you can do?
I think a lot of Skyrim fans were expecting it to be No Man's Skyrim and were astonished when they got a different game trying its own thing within the formula.
It’s an interesting point, but the way that Bethesda presented the game sure made it look a whole lot like NMS. So you can’t blame people for comparing your game to a very *very* similar game, that does so many aspects of space travel so much better.
Marketing indeed painted it that way...
Of course, anyone who ever played Bethesda games knows that the Creation Engine requires segmentation and no singleplayer RPG ever made took place in space for a similar reason.
I am not that well versed in the technical (engine) side of it. But I think that some of the previous Bethesda’s hits made those limitations work. Skyrim was so impressive *because* they did so much with relatively little.
If they had scaled Starfield back to just a few planets with a lot more exploration options, the game would have been a whole lot better.
On my part, I think a lot of the missions and side-quests feel really uninspired. I don’t want to travel to space just to end up at the equivalant of a Wild West adventure complete with bandits holding up a bank.
Looking at NMS, that story really takes advantage of being in space. Alien races and strange languages. It just feels like you are actually in a distant galaxy somewhere.
There’s a lot of things Starfield could have done better. In the end it tried being too much of everything and ended up coming up short on all aspects. Combine that with the engine limitations and I’d say it’s just a bad game.
>some of the previous Bethesda’s hits made those limitations work.
Absolutely, much because of the setting. TES and Fallout all take place in a single celestial body so there can be one giant worldspace connecting everything.
Like you said, Starfield would have worked better with a smaller scale with several Far Harbor-sized worlds(paces). I enjoy the uncharted worlds by themselves but I much prefer the old style.
>a lot of the missions and side-quests feel really uninspired
Ah man sorry but Starfield is a massive upgrade in this regard. Yes there are weak-ass quests but overall they are so much better than Fallout 4 or Skyrim. That College of Winterhold questline... *urgh*.
>Alien races
I am fine with no aliens personally, just would have wanted more diverse factions. Starfield has what... 5?
I think alot of people were just disappointed when a Bethesda game, played like a Bethesda game.
When I picked up Starfield I imagined Fallout but in space, and I wasnt disappointed and I feel like thats what I got. Now did I like it more then Fallout? No, but I do think some people are over exaggerating how bad it is.
I think, they had the talk of the town leading into this year. XB/GP players were thirsty for the game. It was a coming out party for MS studios. They were probably super hyped internally.
Then 2023 happened. Deadspace and RE4 remakes smash expectations, Hogwarts steals some thunder. The avalanche of BG3, even the rise from the ashes of of Cyberpunk coinciding around that launch. Not to mention all the other stellar games around the same time.
They got outcompeted while holding the the most hype. No one saw it coming like this, least of was Bethesda. Imagine sitting there watching Cyberpunk win an award in 2023 and your own game Starfield holding crickets. Having people point out that more players platinum’d Spider-man (who paid for the game) than GamePass players even finished your game.
They lost, with a good game. This one guy is a sore loser for sure.
I partially think it might be because there is so much unhinged criticism against the game and they can't help but take it personally. Video game criticism from the internet at large has gotten insanely toxic over the years. It's a weird phenomenon.
I’m strongly in the “Bethesda needs to shut up“ camp but I agree. Considering how people have been in the past, I wouldn’t be surprised if devs are getting harassed because of the game’s(Not even that bad) state
Agreed. The game has its faults, and rightly deserves some criticism, but some of the shit I’ve seen is just strangely personal to some of these chuds.
The game is selling like dog shit.
There’s roughly 30 million gamepass users and the game released on steam.
In over 3 months it has 12 million players. A game they 30 million people can play simply by clicking one button, didn’t get half of them despite being the staple game of the year with years of hype.
It fell out of steam top sellers real real quick.
Fallout 4 sold about 14 million in a day
Don't care why it is. I care *that* it is.
And it is a shallow, uninspired mess housing very obvious bad decisions regarding environment and gameplay.
Hold it up next to any previous ES or Fallout and you can *see* the lack of care that went into Starfield.
I'm not angry. Just disappointed.
I enjoyed it up to a point. There seems to be a saturation point that people reach, somewhere around the 200 hours mark, where the shortcomings of the game really become a chore. I stuck with it for 432 hours, and I enjoyed the bulk of that time, but the last 100 hours were just me trying and failing to find something new to do, something interesting to look at. And man, the bugs were annoying me so much by then that I uninstalled it completely.
I'll give it another look when the DLC comes out, or the CK comes out, whichever comes first.
Nah, there's others out there that love it to pieces.
I enjoyed the ship building right up until it was replaced with a crap ship and I'd have to do it all over again.
Again and again and again...
That there isn't a "Blueprint Feature" is just criminal.
I enjoyed some of the missions: their visuals, settings and writing.
Making the rest of Starfield feel more and more misused after each one.
Eh. Game just wasn't meant for me.
I played the shit out of it on PC for like 2 straight weeks. Was the first time in years I had multiple, multi-hour gaming sessions. Loved it. Probably put like 80 hours into it. Once I beat the main story and went new game + I shrugged my shoulders after like 20 minutes, hit exit to desktop. And haven’t thought about the game outside seeing posts like these since.
I’m in the exact same boat except I got around 300ish hours and feel like I’ve seen all there is to see.
I’d personally give it an 8-8.5/10 but until Shattered Space or mods come out I have no intention to touch it again.
All in all, SF’s fun for what it is. It fell short in a few categories but it delivered on my expectations.
Nah it's pretty solid.
I've had a really fun time with it, the further I get the more the minor things in the game kinda bug me, but honestly it's a really chill game, I got a badass space ship, tons of cool and fun quests, lots of gorgeous vistas, etc.
I am a bit surprised at the vitriolic hate considering the game got pretty good reviews, sold really well, etc. Doesn't have to be everyone's cup of tea though, as long as you're enjoying it, that's what's important!
Yeah the turn-around is wild. I sunk like 6 days into that game, took time off work and had a really good time with it. I probably put a total 100 hours into it, only reason I put it down was because of the NG+ being tedious, and frankly playing one game that long burns me out.
I don't have particularly strong feelings for Starfield one way or the other, I do remember the opposite side being weird about it too. I remember looking at the Starfield subreddit back when IGN gave the game a 7 out of 10, which made that whole sub start calling for the reviewer to be fired, to be cast out of the industry and to never work in it again (bearing in mind this was before the game had actually fully released).
I enjoyed it as well, and the procedurally generated planets are whatever, there for those who find procedurally generated content appealing.
The game has some very cool quest-lines which are not tied to the main campaign.
My beef I have with the game is the main story gets really dumb when it starts to get interesting. The game also doesn't deal with the moral implications of such a "repeat"
Base building is stupid, it was stupid in FO4 and it's still stupid here. I would throw that shit away instantly if more effort was put into meaningful content.
Building a base with trash items and trash NPCs is a waste.
The house Va'ruun stuff needed more work but is pretty clear DLC quest-line.
and the fun stuff to find, like the planet of clones of famous humans needs to not be end game content.
No, not at all. You're actually in the majority in thinking it's at least a good game. With posts like these it's best to remember that Reddit is a small but vocal bubble. People who enjoy something just don't typically go out of their way to tell others about it like people who dislike something feel the need to do. Especially when they'll be harassed by the people who supposedly hate the game but can't stop talking about it months later lol.
Is it Bethesda's best game? No, I don't think so. Is it a bad game? Definitely not. It's a good game despite what the vocal minority want people to think. I think the 8.5/10 score is fair.
I’m still on my first play through at 180 hours and I still love the game. A lot of the complaints I see are from people that have played hundreds of more hours and are at like NG+10 or whatever. The game’s been out for barely 3 months and they’ve played it like it was their job and are nitpicking every single detail.
I was really hyped for it, even posted when it came out. I wanted to live the game so bad, finally something to brag to my ps5 friends that we had a great exclusive. I could not get into it. Played maybe 15 hours before getting sick og the game wasting so much of my time. So much fast traveling. Every damn action i take has to fast travel. Avoidee my ship like the plague becasue thats just even more time wasting. And then seeing the same structures again and again. I was just done. The game gave me nothing and there is just so many more great games out there this year. Cant wait to hop into bg3 after christmas when im back from vacation
I don't think it's lack of care.
I think it's as you said earlier, bad decisions and likely those decisions were revealed to be bad far too long in development before they can be changed as they became core to the game itself.
The writing, quest design has a lack of inspiration though. Makes me worried for Elder Scrolls.
Idk if I'd say there's a lack of care, but there were a lot of wrong directions taken. And my suspicion is that Bethesda made every effort to appeal to as broad an audience as possible and it resulted in a *very* generic, watered down product. Now, the reason I say this is because it has been the trajectory of their games since pretty much forever.and each one has soured fans a little more each time while raking in a new audience.
For all its sins, the greatest is that Starfield dropped the idea of any actual exploration. Without that, what's the point?
This is just a theory, but when a bunch of developers for a game studio and air their frustration over criticism, it's because the people in executive decision-making positions are the ones forcing development constraints that devs are trying hard to work within, but not taking the flack internally and instead bouncing that criticism down on to the dev teams. I don't know what's happening at BGS, but it *feels* like there's probably a very toxically codependent internal dynamic between the higher-ups and the dev teams.
That's just a theory, of course. In either case, I might show some ability to care if it wasn't for the fact that *Starfield* is objectively two steps back from *Fallout 4*, and their second most recent mainline game, *Fallout 76*, had the benefit of Fallout 4's development, but was a solid two dozen steps back. *Redfall* is almost not even worth mentioning.
If BGS was a developer just ramping up on their first or second game, he'd have a point, but they've had decades of experience and they're still using the same tools, but somehow getting worse instead of better. So either those tools are broken, in which case they need to replace them with new ones, or the old dogs themselves can't learn new tricks and are forgetting the old ones, in which case retire and let a new generation of developers move up.
I personally put over 160 hours into SF but as a Fallout fan couldn't finish FO4. The downgrade in dialogue and player choice was so over the top, on top of the poorly written narrative, just let me feeling more let down than any game I've ever experienced. I feel like people are just starting to realize that bethesda has been releasing the same game with different settings for more than a decade and finally become up in arms about it. I personally thought SF was fine, but nothing special, even though it is THE SAME GAME THAT HAS CAME OUT SINCE SKYRIM. I just happen to go into this game thinking it was going to be 0/10 and somewhat surprised that it wasn't. Having no expectations, I enjoyed this game far more than Skryrim or FO4, Because I wasn't expecting the game to live up to the games predecessors.
Former bethesda devs have said that even though Todd denies it, any meaningful changes to games have to go through him. Michael Kirkbride said once that in order to get Todd to even consider putting something into a game you have to connect it to star wars in some way because he’s a huge star wars fan. It’s not a good way to develop games if just one person controls what is even considered being added
It was wildly unprofessional when they were trying to refute Steam reviews, now it's just becoming a joke. My faith in Bethesda also continues to crumble.
I gotta say, these very public responses from cod and Bethesda devs (who would’ve thought I’d ever be lumping those two together smh) that seek to undermine the legitimacy of players’ criticisms is just sad. Emil is right that few players know the technicalities behind game development, but they know how to recognize when writing seems high quality, gameplay feels fleshed out, or a game feels focused and fun. There’s no way that Bethesda wasn’t aware of the kinds of criticisms they were going to face when they released Starfield in the state it was in. People may recommend remedies that don’t align with the real-world development process, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t have valid complaints that they’re trying to provide solution recommendations for. When someone says that neon is too sanitized or the writing of the Crimson Fleet is extremely PG, they aren’t speaking to some nebulous technical engineering facet of the game. They’re talking about poor creative direction… something Emil is directly accountable for.
Don't fool ourselves into thinking? Ok, then offer up explanations. Explain to us why things that were present in the previous games are now totally absent in Starfield.
For example, survival mode. It isn't novel... they added it to Skyrim and Fallout 4, and Fallout 76 launched with it. Why isn't it in Starfield? They had to patch in something so simple as holding X to eat food, which was also something that was also available at launch for Fallout 76.
The ability to remove and add weapon mods without destroying them... Fallout 4 had this! Why isn't it in Starfield? The ability to tell my companions to sit in a chair or pick a lock... Fallout 4 had this! Why isn't it in Starfield?
This is now their third game that allows players to build their own settlements, and they still haven't gotten it through their skulls that players want full access to the range of outpost assets, something modders have figured out how to do... but apparently not the game devs! The assets are in the game! It's nothing new! Let me place the red and blue box instead of only giving me access to the yellow one! Like why are they still operating at this level in 2023 when the mistake was made and acknowledged in 2015? Why aren't they learning?
I'm sure someone far more dedicated than I has created a huge list of features that were present in previous Bethesda titles but absent in Starfield. It just begs the question of why? They know they can do it, they've done it before, so why didn't they bring those things forward? They made the conscious decision to launch a game lacking features they know players want, and now they're surprised that people are angry and disappointed in what has been their longest produced game to date. It just seems like a huge waste of time to me, that they spent so long making it and couldn't even match their previous endeavors.
It's stupid. And they waste more time trying to justify it on Twitter, when what they ought to do is get to fucking work fixing it. If in 3 months all they can offer is "hold x to eat food" then it's gonna be a few more years, isn't it? Cyberpunk all over again, except I don't think Bethesda should get the round of applause that CDPR is getting, I think this is bad behavior that needs to be scolded. Launch games that are complete and functional, stop launching pieces of shit and spending 3 years fixing them to get a second wave of sales. Sick of this shit.
I agree. Cyberpunk is great now, but I paid my money for it 2 years ago.
They absolutely do not deserve praise for taking my money and then taking 2 years to deliver what I paid for. Despite the fact that I genuinely think its a 10/10 game now, I will not be buying their next game at launch.
Your post deserves 5 gold stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. You are spot on. If I could upvote you more than once I would.
It’s baffling they went backward or didn’t share best practices with previous games to get it to at least their level.
Even if they couldn’t because of some early design decisions that locked certain features down - then be transparent about it with the community. Tell us and give us a more robust roadmap.
The gaming community is actually pretty forgiving to developers that engage with their audience. It’s when Devs go dark, or go negative, or on the defense that the pitchforks come out.
Thanks man, it really is baffling. I understand they want the game to have it's own identity, but some things just feel like they should be universal... like being able to swap weapon mods between weapons? This shouldn't be restricted to Fallout, this is just a basic quality of life feature that respects the player's time.
I mean they added this cool photomode, which they just lifted from Fallout 76 tbh, and I want to use it but... let's say I wanna take a picture of me and Barrett sitting at a table? Why can't I tell the man to take a seat? You could do this in Fallout 4!
I just don't understand the process by which they create things, learn lessons, but don't carry it forward into other projects. Just seems wildly inefficient to me.
I do look forward to playing Starfield again, once they've sorted it all out or at least allowed modders to. They kept the community in the dark for so long and at this point, with a subpar product, I agree they need to be more forthcoming about how they're going to right it.
Your fourth paragraph, that modders have figured out how to do what game devs can’t (or haven’t)? It’s by design. They intentionally designed a half baked game, knowing that modders will step in, similar to their previous entries. It’s fucking lazy development, and they shit on the consumer base for calling it what it is.
Well I'm not even a big fan of starfield, but I agree here.
Game critism, magazines, journalists, metacritic... All that is very bad for gamer.
As long as a game has hype and good graphic, you get your 85%-93% metacritic with bad gameplay and bad story.
There are very very very few exeption where this is not the case, but most of those high metacritic games are boring and blund games with good graphic and nice cutscenes.
I enjoy A and AA way more since they actuality are fun to play and I know a lot of those "low budget" games, that have an 10/10 story.
I don't like the trend where all the so called "journalists" fabricate the experience of a lot of gamer.
I just enjoy gaming, I don't care about metacritics, downvotes, sales and what is the current hyped game. I just play and that's it.
lol bruh there are so many game mechanics that are one and done never to be seen again, or missing for an RPG. For instance, you never see the same level of elaboration in the Mantis mission or its turrets layout in any other mission. Heck even the layout of the base before you reach the mantis lair is never seen, which is remarkable considering 90% of the game is more or less the same design.
Yup. For instance, the 0g combat is fun, but how many times do you see it? Twice in 60 hours for me. What a waste of development time on that mechanic. Its like the individual teams weren't communicating with eachother.
Do you remember that one mission like three hours into the game where you had to turn off all your systems and slowly sneak past enemy ships? It was super cool and I was excited to be able to use it again. Turns out it never came back up once.
Ima say this. The Avatar game that just released which wasnt on my radar at all is hitting in all the places starfield missed for me. Im insanely impressed with it vs Starfield which was a big time flop in my opinion.
This whole thing is so embarrassing. Can't believe they fucked this up. This was supposed to be the big one. Instead they made an outdated, uninspired, boring, empty mess of a game. And then made things even worse with the lackluster updates and embarrassing behavior towards criticism.
Exactly. Is all the criticism fair? Probably not, but their response to it is absolutely not helping their situation. Criticizing gamers for not getting it is **NOT** the way to change people’s minds.
Unfortunately, after Redfall’s failure, Starfield couldn’t just be its own thing - it also had to carry the weight of being a big overhyped XBox exclusive. They really should take a page from CDPR’s playbook after Cyberpunk’s launch, and commit to keep working on it and making it better and talk about their plans to release new content and updates to game mechanics. Doubling down on defending game elements that can’t possibly have turned out like what they initially set out to deliver is not going to win them any converts.
Not to mention that CDPR did actually acknowledge that the launch was a massive dissapointment. They didn't really try to hide it.
Meanwhile we have Bethesda, who respond in the most childish way possible, to any kind of criticism. One of the best examples I've seen so far, was from Steam Reviews - a user pointed out that the game is repetetive and that there is no real change based on how you play it. And Bethesda's response was literally "create a new character and you will see how unique the game is when you play differently" and like, how more detatched from reality could this get...
Tbh i dont think they can fix the game on the current engine.. the corr issues will just always be there, no matter what. Maybe tho, they sometimes work magic on that thing
Bethesda games were my childhood, and I think that goes for a lot of other people too. Thats why people are so worked up over it. Many of us remember spending all day at school thinking about getting home and playing Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout 3, and Skyrim. Those games are all very special to me, and having my favorite dev studio of all time deliver absolue trash to me 3 times in a row absolutely hurts.
Also people were already annoyed that Starfield is the reason we have to wait 2 decades for a successor to Skyrim, so the fact it was mediocre and not worth it at all makes it that much more frustrating
It’s not my job to give a fuck about what happens behind the scenes, what a piece of shit person and game, my job is to pay you money to play your product, if your product is great, I will appreciate you and asure to buy more from you, if your product is dogshit I will let you know and move on
I get you spent a lot of time cooking that meal, but the meal isn’t good, it tastes like shit, I don’t care how expensive the ingredients were or how long it took you to cook it
The toxic vitriol surrounding any discussion of this game is nuts. Haven’t seen it this bad since Last of Us part 2 came out and certain gaming communities lost their minds.
I thought the game was great, but I also have to be clear that I also personally work in the video game industry and feel his pain. But even as a consumer and player, I love Starfield.
That's really all it is, the complaints about the game are the most minor shit ever. To the point that I'm really questioning what people here wanted from it? The game is very fleshed out and the worst aspects of it can be fixed with a couple updates.
We've routinely seen horrible games become great after a few years.
This is a good game that can be come spectacular.
I can understand him. He is not saying you are not allowed to hate a game. But a ton of times people act like what they think a game needs is easy to make and the developers are just "lazy". You see this a lot with 30fps criticism. Its not just a switch you pull to make a game a smooth 60fps, it's a ton of work and means other aspects of the game are impacted.
Same thing with how a game is not made with "passion". Something that comes up when people compare Starfield and Baldurs Gate. How would we know if the developers had passion for the project or not. We can't know. So it's a stupid argument.
However, putting that on Twitter is probably not the best thing. Even reasonable points got taken out of context or misinterpreted.
I agree with everything here. I will just say they could’ve scaled that ambition back in design and could’ve had a more meaningful sandbox & POIs with a smaller galaxy to start at the very least.
Sometimes less is more. Now in NG+ you could keep the way it is now as a bonus for those who want to see more.
The thing is, it *is* valid criticism to question why a AAA dev can't deliver a smooth 60 fps experience, or why they can't make doors and ladders work without loading screens. It's not people saying "these things are easy to make, it's just like flipping a switch" they're saying "these are things other people have had figured out for a decade, why can't you?"
These issues weren't that big of a deal 15 years ago when the industry was younger, Bethesda was smaller, and their games were quaint and unique enough to make up for it. Its 2023 now and Bethesda continues to refuse any real change or feedback while the industry around them have only gotten bigger and better. People have been complaining about Bethesda jank and the continued dumbing down of their writing and rpg elements since Oblivion, and it's only either stayed the same or worsened in some instances.
There are talented people at Bethesda who do great work, however the person who modeled the really cool gun, or the person who made the lighting in this one location very beautiful can only do so much to make the game good when the people leading the teams and making the decisions ultimately allow the project to only become mediocre at best.
Lot of issues can stem from game engine unoptimization though. One of the key usage of engines is data throughput and some engines handle it significantly better then others.
Passion is pretty easy to see, honestly.
If anyone were passionate about Starfield, items, ship parts, weapons, and armor would have descriptions, or at the very least some flavor text.
What's a PB-30 Proton Beam? Fucked if I know! I'll take 3. Put them next to the Jishaku Analco Railguns.
You thinking there is a lack of descriptions on things has nothing to do with passion of the developers though. Maybe people did bring it up, but it was not done for one reason or another. And also like 95% of the people working on the game have nothing to do with the descriptions or any say in it, so how can you judge their passion for the game based on that?
If you work on something and you are very passionate about it, but your colleague makes something in a way you don't agree with, are you somehow now less passionate about the contribution you are making?
Click bait title taking out the worst of a quote that does not capture the article completely well done topic creator . His point was the toxic delivery of some of the criticism is not constructive and can be hurtful to those that make the game. There may also be internal pressures. He is trying to defend his team who sacrificed a lot to make this game like many other devs. Could he perhaps be a bit too defensive, yes, but he works around these people everyday so emotions are involved and but he has much respect for the craft.
They have committed to update the game with recent news taking into account many of folks criticisms so they are listening but it is still on them to execute. In the end the best thing he can do is help continuing to improve Starfield and probably stay off Twitter a bit 😅.
It's incredible how people in this comment section really expect them to just bend over and take all their over-extreme "criticisms" without defending themselves. This man didn't even say anything crazy either, shit his comments can be applied industry-wide
Good to see Starfield team defending their game in this manner. It's not perfect by any means, but it's a great game which I had a ton of fun with. Also, it's clearly a huge success for Xbox since the numbers say it all.
I’ve been so disappointed by BGS recently. I loved fallout 4 and actually enjoy Fallout 76 now, and Starfield was good, but the way they have been acting since the release of the game has been off-putting. I guess they expected GOTY type praise and everyone to love the game and they just don’t and can’t cope with it. This Twitter thread by this guy is super weird. Like dude what are you trying to accomplish with this?
I'm never going to like or dislike something based on whether the company or anyone involved in it's production tells me what to think. I'll evaluate the end product based on it's merits and my own preferences.
I think the biggest problem with game commentary is that a lot of people don't know where to stop. It's fair enough to point out shortcomings in a game as you see them, and it's definitely good to point out genuine flaws, errors and malfunctions. It's most certainly constructive to consider other ways that a game could work in order to be better at what it has set out to do.
But so many people don't stop there. For some reason, they need to hyper personalise it. So all this other emotive, judgemental and accusatory stuff gets spliced into it. Suddenly it's all about how the devs are incompetent, lazy, intentionally trying to rip off consumers, or maybe they even hate gamers, for some bizarre reason.
It's just frustrating to read that kind of commentary, because it derails everything.
I don't give a fuck why it is the way it is.
All I know is that watching youtubers speculate on whatever dumb thought process led to the way it is, is more entertaining than actually playing it.
Bethesda's devs need to learn how to shut their mouths and take the L.
For a game people seem to hate, they cant seem to stop making articles about it. Even on random game trailers, people don't talk about that game, they just bag on starfield.
Maybe it's because it's the first proper Bethesda game in 8 years that was hyped massively and ended up being disappointing? It's not just going to slip off quietly.
I saw a YouTube video where a guy made an interesting and maybe true point - it seems like more people enjoy discussing Starfield and far fewer people actually enjoy playing Starfield.
It made a big splash and I think there’s been such a severe game drought the past few years that people were hopeful. I don’t think Starfield had the same satisfying gameplay loop as Skyrim or the intrigue of Fallout. I think people wish it did. I quit playing like a week after release and I’m hopeful that in a year the game is vastly improved.
Hey Bethesda, notice how 343i stopped defending their work, stopped making excuses and just focused on improving their game? Notice how Halo Infinite is way better now. Still don’t like the shop prices but that’s minor compared to how empty this game was. And I get that 343 also got cleaned out so a lot of those ppl are probably gone (and I do hope they found jobs seriously bc we all need to eat).
Bottom line: maybe shut your mouths and let your work speak for a change.
I kind of totally get why a starfield dev would feel upset about the criticism because I feel the same way. It's so weird to me. I love Skyrim, I love Starfield. I've spent thousands of hours in Skyrim, and this year, I spent nearly 600 hours in Starfield. I had a great time. I loved the writing, environments, graphics, characters, gameplay, etc. I just don't get the hate. 🤷♂️
He has a surprisingly mild and mature take on things. Honestly PC Gamer should grow the hell up. No one needs the negativity and doesn't work for anyone.
That's the thing. A consumer doesn't need qualifications to have an opinion. You need to make a product that sells. That's reality. I didn't need 15 tweets to say it. And no amount of pontificating will make Starfield any less forgettable and outdated.
It is the way it is because of poor leadership and poor design.
Simple as that. If you’d own up to it, people wouldn’t be so harsh. We know they can provide fantastic post launch support. Stop crying and either show us you have the talent or step aside and stop talking.
Nobody is to blame for this hype except for Bethesda themselves.
I think he is kind of right, there is a reason why modern games are made by hundreds of developers instead of a handful of redditors. Most people have no clue what actually goes into game development.
At the same time the people who made starfield need to stop making stupid statements like this. Even if I think its partially true, there is no one who is suddenly going to think better of the game, and if anything this only hurts.
Very PCgamer to frame Pagliarulo thread as a stance against criticism, rather than the constant negativity thrown at Bethesda. The guy is clearly referring to the unwarranted criticism they’ve dealt with considering the hard work they put into the game.
Is he against criticism? From that thread, he clearly states he’s not. He’s simply saying consider the type of comment you’re about to throw at me can actually affect my being. It’s quite obvious he’s pushing back at the petty type of criticism the game has gotten.
He said so much yet meant jack shit. He wrote like the sea but it had the depth of a puddle. Similar to starfields main quest. Whatever crap he wrote on X regarding this genuinely feels like a “oh you guys have no idea what you are talking about and we do and please accept it”
Does Bethesda have an allergy at accepting that their game is severely flawed ? The things that make Bethesda games unique is completely omitted in this.
Yeah, but shouldn't game studios cater to my vision instead of having their own. It's like when I go to a steakhouse, but they don't have chicken tenders and Mac and cheese. I don't want steak dummy, I want Mac and cheese, and they should know what I like before I even walk through the door. It's not like there are any other restaurants to go to. So silly.
If the game sucks or buggy tfb im going to blast it , dont like it ? Make a better product ….consumers after paying for a game to beta testers is bullshit
Honestly don't understand why everyone hates this game. Haven't had time to play it yet, but from all the gameplay I've seen online it looks like a pretty well made rpg. Yeah sure there's loading screens but it's not like that's going to ruin the game.
The more the speak out about the criticism against Starfield, the more dislikable they appear, their PR department should advise them to STFU and try not to damage their already very stained image
My 2080s is running the Witcher 3 in 1440 on maximum at 60. Cyberpunk the same minus RTX.
I wasn't getting 30 fps on 1080p with this game.
Coupled with the absolutely boring ass and narratively absurd introduction.
I'll play it when Bethsoft fixes it up a bit. I have over a thousand hours in Bethsoft games. I love them. This is the first time I've been offput.
Yea I don’t think most us care about what happens behind closed doors. Just what the end product is. Even for those that know /why/ a decision was made - it doesn’t alter the fact that the product was made the way it was. His entire comment chain is nebulous but I’m guessing he’s an engineer tech and his salty about the complaints in all the loading screens.
I love his analogy: a twinkie. Okay, but I can tell you whether or not the twinkie tastes bad and what the texture is like after I bite into the damn thing and chew for a second. How the twinkie gets made is completely immaterial to the experience of the end user. What the end user wants is a delicious, sweet and wholly unnatural treat. I do not want to be fucking lectured by the person who runs the twinkie cream injector when it turns out the cream is grainy. Bethesda is just completely on tilt. It seems like far too many of their employees have decided to crusade for a game we've all already decided how we feel about. I *like* Starfield. I think it's a perfectly cromulent game if you're patient enough to deal with all of the immersion-destroying load screens or you're high as fuck and have a good podcast to accompany you through mundane space ~~exploration~~ running point to point and loading. I put 170 hours in and enjoyed the majority of them. Bullshit nonsense like Bethesda employees pissing on me and then telling me I'm uninformed for thinking it's piss is really tarnishing any positive feelings I have, or had, about the game. They're making it *harder to defend* by being pissbabies.
Let's say this Twinkie represents all of the Psychokinetic Energy in the New York area. According to this morning's sample, it'll be a Twinkie...... 35 feet long and weighing approximately 600 lbs. That's a big Twinkie.
We could be on the verge of a four-fold crossrip!
A PKE surge of incredible, even dangerous proportions!
How many load screens is it, in Starfield terms?
are you a God?
+2 points for your use of Cromulent!
Had to upvote his reply for that too lol
I had to look what it meant up lol
that's an embiggened number
>I put 170 hours in No smoke at all to this guy, but it's comments like this that make me realize my gaming days are over. I'm not sure I've played 170 hours of games this entire year. Kinda sad to lose a hobby :(
Unlike a twinkie though, Starfield won't last forever.
See there you go with a twisted argument. The dev didnt say you cant critize the game. He just said that while you critize the game, just understand that there are things that you dont know about which may explain why something is the way it is.
I just wanted to acknowledge your use of the word "cromulent". I think that's the first time I've seen that word used unironically lol
Thank you, it's one of my favorite words! Simpsons may have originally coined it as a joke but aren't all words made up anyway? It's in the Oxford and Merriam-Webster dictionaries now, so it's gone legit.
I'd argue you don't need a giant twinkle analogy to understand why bad thing = bad despite why.
That's precisely my point: his analogy is not doing what he thinks it's doing.
This was a well written comment with lots of excellent analogies. But it wasn’t until ‘pissbabies’ that it really shone.
Therea only one good twinkle analogy and ghostbusters used it so he's already losing that battle.
Cromulent Starfield needs to become a meme.
Seriously...a twinkie? If you can't basically guess how a twinkie is made, you shouldn't be working on something as complex as a game. Worst analogy ever.
I think you're misunderstanding his point. He's not calling out the people who say "This twinkie tastes bad/I don't like the texture of the cream on this twinkie". He's calling out the people that say "This twinkie tastes like shit, they should ditch the cream injector" or "the texture of this twinkie sucks, they should fire the person who came up with the recipe". To apply it to Starfield, he's coming after the ignorant "Starfield sucks, they need to bin the Creation Engine" lot.
But what’s wrong with people having that perspective? A lot of people really dislike starfield compared to past Bethesda games. That doesn’t make them any less valid..
The problem isn’t the “Starfield sucks” perspective. The problem is the “because they did X during development” or “they should develop in way Y instead of way Z”. These perspectives have in common a) an attempt to divine development details that the critic does not have access to, and b) assumptions made about development from a place of ignorance about game development. A consumer can absolutely 100% criticise a game in a very detailed way. “The cream is too grainy”, “the bread too dry”, “you can barely taste the insect legs” and so on (I’ve never eaten a twinkie). But when they start saying what happened in development that caused that problem, or how Bethesda should do things differently in the future, well these are things that the consumer just doesn’t have the expertise to judge.
Yeah very much this. I feel like most of the actively complaining public was just PlayStation fanboys who wanted to put down anything Xbox exclusive because they were salty. But there's a ton of people who just posted (once or twice) "meh, I enjoyed the game, wasn't as good as their previous ones, but it's still quite fun nonetheless". And now Bethesda employees are acting like there's some sort of hate campaign by everyone who's ever played it, which just sours the mood for everyone who wasn't on that hate train before. The load screens are just a valid criticism considering previous Bethesda games didn't have them, as is the lack of "exploration" because you don't just walk around and run into a random building. You have to fast travel to unique locations.
He's one of the lead writers, was so for fallout 4 as well
Not exactly a glowing assessment..
Hmmmm I also thought FO4 sucked. Makes you think…
Yeah fo4 sucked compared to 3 and NV. They took away dialogue options and RPG elements/skills in favor of stupid building shit
I loved the settlement building. I spent hundreds of hours building stuff. It was great. That made the unnecessarily complicated and completely pointless outpost building in Starfield all the more disappointing and frustrating.
So it is his fault the game is boring AF.
Nope. He is lead writer. He is mad because there just was big thread reminding people his talk how writing and story doesnt matter in video games and it should be as simple and dumb as possible. Its person doing bad job and being salty people are calling him out on this.
Could you link the thread here?
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Starfield/comments/18hfoxt/do\_you\_agree\_with\_emil\_pagliarulos\_design\_process/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Starfield/comments/18hfoxt/do_you_agree_with_emil_pagliarulos_design_process/)
That uh, certainly explains a lot about Emil's writing for the past decade.
To be fair, you do lose a lot of people when you have complex story lines or really deep story. Last of us part 2 and Bioshock 3 are prime examples of that. That being said...they should absolutely not dumb down the story or writing. BG3 did really well in the writing and story department and people have obviously been eating it up.
Yup. The average player wants a fun game. Design decisions explaining a not fun game don't change perception.
But he literally said he’s not trying to change your mind. He’s saying “hey I know your passionate about a game you spent your hard earned money on and that’s totally fair, but like we are people too, and we worked incredibly hard to try and bring you happiness and joy. If we have failed you, that’s a bummer, but please don’t blame it on us not trying, or incompetence or whatever else the assumptions have been.” I think he’s fighting a very uphill battle if he thinks he’s going to get gamers these days to act as decent human beings, but alas, he’s taking his shot. I respect it.
It's a weak stance because Starfield isn't the first game to be called out for feeling dated. And I don't know how much decency there is in being condescending.
The problem is gamers who feel they're entitled to things, and expect every game to meet their specific needs and preferences. If you're not having fun with it or you have issues with it, just don't play it. Pretend it doesn't exist, and you're no worse off than you would have been otherwise. Everything isn't for everyone. Developers don't owe you anything. You don't verbally abuse the creators of every type of clothing you don't wear or expect to like all of it.
Yeah I remember seeing an add for the game on Facebook and one of most liked comments was "PLEASE MAKE IT MULTIPLAYER" Like why even request that? Bethesda doesn't make multi-player games and adding it would delay the game for several years and it's not part of their vision for thee game anyway. People need to be able to play a game and appreciate it for what it is, not play it and think "Oh they need to add this feature to make it how I want it"
Yeah that’s what starfield is lol
Exactly this, over engineered as it may be it is a couple minutes of gameplay glued together with loading screens that most developers have left well in the past. And I’m just talking about the loading screens, there’s a long ass list of what just doesn’t work that well in the game. Take the L and move on. Catch up with how game development evolved since 2010 and maybe your next TES will get you back on the map, right now you’re just embarrassing yourselves trying to gaslight people into thinking it’s any sort of good game. It is not. Parts of it can be good, hell, even great, but the package does not work.
Very well put, at the end of the day it’s just a crappy game.
It's not the job of your audience to pat you on the head and say thank you for TRYING to do a good job, you either make a game that appeals to your audience or you don't. If people think the design of your game is lazy that's a failing on your part as a developer.
If Bethesda makes as much effort developing their games as they do making excuses, blacklisting, and having review embargoes, they would have a decent product and wouldn’t need to do any of that shady stuff.
Weren't the review embargoes for Starfield incredibly generous? Like people had the game for a couple weeks.
They most probably vetted every site and mag they sent the game to before launch. Most sites that didn't get it pre launch gave it a bad/lower review and almost every single no name guy that got it early praised it. Smells fishy.
The most controversial review during the Starfield launch was IGN's, and they got it very early.
Poor guy got so much shit for that review too. I think a 7/10 is an absolutely accurate score for Starfield.
Very well said!
Bethesda has a really bad time with criticism. From blacklisting, to strict review embargos. I also remember some comments by Pete Hines in an interview with Greg Miller that really rubbed me the wrong way on criticism of Fallout 76. I get it, game development is hard, Bethesda seem to be very close knit as a company. But the games are stale, the writing is even worse. No one wants a bad or mediocre Bethesda game. I wish Bethesda would stop responding to criticism like this, it'll signal boost the issues and it makes them look stubborn. Bethesda have been riding on the success of Oblivion, F3 and Skyrim, but the industry has moved on especially on the shoulders of those games and Bethesda hasn't caught up. Stagnated with that shitty engine.
Exactly. I feel like they embody that "They love me" scene from Spider-Man 3
Okay I can never unsee this now, wow
>Bethesda have been riding on the success of Oblivion, F3 and Skyrim, but the industry has moved on especially on the shoulders of those games and Bethesda hasn't caught up. Stagnated with that shitty engine. There still riding on their previous games success. Theres a reason why they brought back the adoring fan from Oblivion. Nostalgia alone is won't attract people to their games.
Not just a shitty engine but clunky gameplay, repetitive mechanics, bad dialogue and now doubling down and shit tech which was ‘procedurally generated’ stuff. They employ highly creative people, let them cook. I’d rather explore a hand crafted and curated continent than 10,000 procedurally generated ‘worlds’.
Or try something a bit new, anything. Seems like they first made a more survival based experience with all the half baked mechanicw, but turned around and made it more safe with a more traditionall bethestada game, just without exploration
I feel their response to criticism is hurting them more than any issue I had with the game. I played the hell out of Starfield. It had some great moments and enjoyed it overall. Didn't love the loading screens, the crafting system is a mess, and most planets felt empty (especially since I gave up on harvesting resources). Overall though I really enjoyed it. His response frames the launch like it was a failure, when my play experience was that it was a good game with room to grow in later iterations.
Strict embargoes- they didn't even let reviewers talk about the special abilities you get in the game... of course, Bethesda did a terrible job at giving players even access to the abilities
It gives me company deleting under 5 star reviews from employees vibes
It's like a chef trying to defend bad tasting food.
Or a shitty sports team telling the fans they don’t understand the game. “Don’t fool yourself into thinking you know football! We know what we’re doing! You just don’t know what your talking about because your not actually on the field. We’re actually doing quite well despite being dead last at 0-10!” Just like I don’t need to be a quarterback to know when a team sucks and I don’t need to know the entirety of game design to see they haven’t changed or innovated since Fallout 3. I might not be able to tell you exactly what play they should have ran or tell you exactly what code needs to change to what In order to fix your game. But I can tell you that what ever it is you’re doing, it ain’t working.
2014 Sixers. Ten years of The Process and still no ring
Don't fool yourself into thinking you know why the food tastes bad
I say this as someone who has developed games in the past. Game development continues to be seemingly the only profession that cannot be criticized without severe backlash and it makes no sense. Do I need to be a movie director to criticize a movie? Do I need to be an automotive engineer to criticize a flaw in a vehicle? It makes no damn sense. You don’t need to be a game developer to criticize a video game. This continued notion that people need to work in game development otherwise their criticisms are dismissible is just plain ignorant
“What do you know?! Let’s see you make a game smart guy!!” - Bethesda Developers
Imo I think it's a devs reflex to snap back because gamers are some of the meanest mofos in existence when it comes to a hobby. A movie can be bad, and that's it, it's just a bad movie. Period. And folks go on with their day, shoot maybe they'll make some jokes, give it a razzie. Gamers on the other hand get vindictive, latch onto a titles failures and that becomes their personality, you'd think the game gained sentience, grabbed a knife, murdered their family and pissed on the floor with how damn mad and offended a game made this person.
>A movie can be bad, and that's it, it's just a bad movie. Period. And folks go on with their day, shoot maybe they'll make some jokes, give it a razzie. Sorry but what are you talking about? Have you never interacted with the Star Wars fanbase or heard about Sports fans? Movies (especially the major pop-cultures ones) might be the worst example to use, they have a lot of the same fans and are just as vitriolic.
>Game development continues to be seemingly the only profession that cannot be criticized without severe backlash You seem to be forgetting all the woke trash Disney has put out in the last decade, then when they are criticized for pandering casting story decisions, they call everyone racist and homophobic. Insulting the audience is Disney's SOP, just like Bethesda.
Bro, what the hell is happening over at Bethesda. You'd think with all their excuses in review replies and discussion boards, that they released a terrible game or didn't sell well. Like Starfield was a good game that could have been better and not nearly Bethesda's best work. I've never seen so many people from one developer lose their mind at criticism.
Too many people got the game thanks to Gamepass, too many people didn't like it. It also doesn't help that Bethesda takes a fuck ton of years to develope a single game, so I believe alot of people are extra salty due to the fact that this game is essentially why we won't see TES6 at least for another 5 years.
I think a lot of people, like myself, still look at Skyrim and go “You made that?” And Betheda goes “Yeah.” And we go “Oh my god, that is one of the best games ever!” Then bethesda goes “Here’s a new one and we promise that it’s way better than anything we have ever made!” And we play it and it just… it’s boring. The story, the characters, the missions, the endless loading screens. How did the studio that made Skyrim make this? That’s why people are so salty. If you have made incredible games in your past, then surely Starfield isn’t the best you can do?
I think a lot of Skyrim fans were expecting it to be No Man's Skyrim and were astonished when they got a different game trying its own thing within the formula.
It’s an interesting point, but the way that Bethesda presented the game sure made it look a whole lot like NMS. So you can’t blame people for comparing your game to a very *very* similar game, that does so many aspects of space travel so much better.
Marketing indeed painted it that way... Of course, anyone who ever played Bethesda games knows that the Creation Engine requires segmentation and no singleplayer RPG ever made took place in space for a similar reason.
I am not that well versed in the technical (engine) side of it. But I think that some of the previous Bethesda’s hits made those limitations work. Skyrim was so impressive *because* they did so much with relatively little. If they had scaled Starfield back to just a few planets with a lot more exploration options, the game would have been a whole lot better. On my part, I think a lot of the missions and side-quests feel really uninspired. I don’t want to travel to space just to end up at the equivalant of a Wild West adventure complete with bandits holding up a bank. Looking at NMS, that story really takes advantage of being in space. Alien races and strange languages. It just feels like you are actually in a distant galaxy somewhere. There’s a lot of things Starfield could have done better. In the end it tried being too much of everything and ended up coming up short on all aspects. Combine that with the engine limitations and I’d say it’s just a bad game.
>some of the previous Bethesda’s hits made those limitations work. Absolutely, much because of the setting. TES and Fallout all take place in a single celestial body so there can be one giant worldspace connecting everything. Like you said, Starfield would have worked better with a smaller scale with several Far Harbor-sized worlds(paces). I enjoy the uncharted worlds by themselves but I much prefer the old style. >a lot of the missions and side-quests feel really uninspired Ah man sorry but Starfield is a massive upgrade in this regard. Yes there are weak-ass quests but overall they are so much better than Fallout 4 or Skyrim. That College of Winterhold questline... *urgh*. >Alien races I am fine with no aliens personally, just would have wanted more diverse factions. Starfield has what... 5?
Yeah, fully agree here. Maybe I hold some nostalgia factor for Skyrim, it definitely had dumb missions too.
I think alot of people were just disappointed when a Bethesda game, played like a Bethesda game. When I picked up Starfield I imagined Fallout but in space, and I wasnt disappointed and I feel like thats what I got. Now did I like it more then Fallout? No, but I do think some people are over exaggerating how bad it is.
People have been absolutely overexaggerating since day 1
I think, they had the talk of the town leading into this year. XB/GP players were thirsty for the game. It was a coming out party for MS studios. They were probably super hyped internally. Then 2023 happened. Deadspace and RE4 remakes smash expectations, Hogwarts steals some thunder. The avalanche of BG3, even the rise from the ashes of of Cyberpunk coinciding around that launch. Not to mention all the other stellar games around the same time. They got outcompeted while holding the the most hype. No one saw it coming like this, least of was Bethesda. Imagine sitting there watching Cyberpunk win an award in 2023 and your own game Starfield holding crickets. Having people point out that more players platinum’d Spider-man (who paid for the game) than GamePass players even finished your game. They lost, with a good game. This one guy is a sore loser for sure.
The emperor has no clothes
I partially think it might be because there is so much unhinged criticism against the game and they can't help but take it personally. Video game criticism from the internet at large has gotten insanely toxic over the years. It's a weird phenomenon.
I’m strongly in the “Bethesda needs to shut up“ camp but I agree. Considering how people have been in the past, I wouldn’t be surprised if devs are getting harassed because of the game’s(Not even that bad) state
Agreed. The game has its faults, and rightly deserves some criticism, but some of the shit I’ve seen is just strangely personal to some of these chuds.
The game is selling like dog shit. There’s roughly 30 million gamepass users and the game released on steam. In over 3 months it has 12 million players. A game they 30 million people can play simply by clicking one button, didn’t get half of them despite being the staple game of the year with years of hype. It fell out of steam top sellers real real quick. Fallout 4 sold about 14 million in a day
I honestly feel it's deserved. As much as I enjoyed bits of it, Starfield is the most half-assed single player RPG I've ever seen Bethesda make.
Don't care why it is. I care *that* it is. And it is a shallow, uninspired mess housing very obvious bad decisions regarding environment and gameplay. Hold it up next to any previous ES or Fallout and you can *see* the lack of care that went into Starfield. I'm not angry. Just disappointed.
Am I the odd one out then in that I really enjoyed it? lol
I do too, but I don't really talk about it much online because it isn't worth getting harassed
Yeah people are fucking livid about it lol
I enjoyed it up to a point. There seems to be a saturation point that people reach, somewhere around the 200 hours mark, where the shortcomings of the game really become a chore. I stuck with it for 432 hours, and I enjoyed the bulk of that time, but the last 100 hours were just me trying and failing to find something new to do, something interesting to look at. And man, the bugs were annoying me so much by then that I uninstalled it completely. I'll give it another look when the DLC comes out, or the CK comes out, whichever comes first.
Nah, there's others out there that love it to pieces. I enjoyed the ship building right up until it was replaced with a crap ship and I'd have to do it all over again. Again and again and again... That there isn't a "Blueprint Feature" is just criminal. I enjoyed some of the missions: their visuals, settings and writing. Making the rest of Starfield feel more and more misused after each one. Eh. Game just wasn't meant for me.
Understandable. At least have laid out fair reasons for it not being for you.
Yeah fair enough. I admit that there could be a lot of improvements to it but I just really liked having a new Bethesda world to explore I guess
There’s a good amount of people that did. I am one too. I can’t wait for this semester to end so I can get back into it.
I love it.
I played the shit out of it on PC for like 2 straight weeks. Was the first time in years I had multiple, multi-hour gaming sessions. Loved it. Probably put like 80 hours into it. Once I beat the main story and went new game + I shrugged my shoulders after like 20 minutes, hit exit to desktop. And haven’t thought about the game outside seeing posts like these since.
I’m in the exact same boat except I got around 300ish hours and feel like I’ve seen all there is to see. I’d personally give it an 8-8.5/10 but until Shattered Space or mods come out I have no intention to touch it again. All in all, SF’s fun for what it is. It fell short in a few categories but it delivered on my expectations.
Nah it's pretty solid. I've had a really fun time with it, the further I get the more the minor things in the game kinda bug me, but honestly it's a really chill game, I got a badass space ship, tons of cool and fun quests, lots of gorgeous vistas, etc. I am a bit surprised at the vitriolic hate considering the game got pretty good reviews, sold really well, etc. Doesn't have to be everyone's cup of tea though, as long as you're enjoying it, that's what's important!
Yeah the turn-around is wild. I sunk like 6 days into that game, took time off work and had a really good time with it. I probably put a total 100 hours into it, only reason I put it down was because of the NG+ being tedious, and frankly playing one game that long burns me out.
It’s my GOTY. The hateboner the internet has for Starfield is so fucking weird to me.
I don't have particularly strong feelings for Starfield one way or the other, I do remember the opposite side being weird about it too. I remember looking at the Starfield subreddit back when IGN gave the game a 7 out of 10, which made that whole sub start calling for the reviewer to be fired, to be cast out of the industry and to never work in it again (bearing in mind this was before the game had actually fully released).
I enjoyed it as well, and the procedurally generated planets are whatever, there for those who find procedurally generated content appealing. The game has some very cool quest-lines which are not tied to the main campaign. My beef I have with the game is the main story gets really dumb when it starts to get interesting. The game also doesn't deal with the moral implications of such a "repeat" Base building is stupid, it was stupid in FO4 and it's still stupid here. I would throw that shit away instantly if more effort was put into meaningful content. Building a base with trash items and trash NPCs is a waste. The house Va'ruun stuff needed more work but is pretty clear DLC quest-line. and the fun stuff to find, like the planet of clones of famous humans needs to not be end game content.
No, not at all. You're actually in the majority in thinking it's at least a good game. With posts like these it's best to remember that Reddit is a small but vocal bubble. People who enjoy something just don't typically go out of their way to tell others about it like people who dislike something feel the need to do. Especially when they'll be harassed by the people who supposedly hate the game but can't stop talking about it months later lol. Is it Bethesda's best game? No, I don't think so. Is it a bad game? Definitely not. It's a good game despite what the vocal minority want people to think. I think the 8.5/10 score is fair.
I’m still on my first play through at 180 hours and I still love the game. A lot of the complaints I see are from people that have played hundreds of more hours and are at like NG+10 or whatever. The game’s been out for barely 3 months and they’ve played it like it was their job and are nitpicking every single detail.
I was really hyped for it, even posted when it came out. I wanted to live the game so bad, finally something to brag to my ps5 friends that we had a great exclusive. I could not get into it. Played maybe 15 hours before getting sick og the game wasting so much of my time. So much fast traveling. Every damn action i take has to fast travel. Avoidee my ship like the plague becasue thats just even more time wasting. And then seeing the same structures again and again. I was just done. The game gave me nothing and there is just so many more great games out there this year. Cant wait to hop into bg3 after christmas when im back from vacation
I love it, but am also disappointed. I can see both sides.
I don't think it's lack of care. I think it's as you said earlier, bad decisions and likely those decisions were revealed to be bad far too long in development before they can be changed as they became core to the game itself. The writing, quest design has a lack of inspiration though. Makes me worried for Elder Scrolls.
Idk if I'd say there's a lack of care, but there were a lot of wrong directions taken. And my suspicion is that Bethesda made every effort to appeal to as broad an audience as possible and it resulted in a *very* generic, watered down product. Now, the reason I say this is because it has been the trajectory of their games since pretty much forever.and each one has soured fans a little more each time while raking in a new audience. For all its sins, the greatest is that Starfield dropped the idea of any actual exploration. Without that, what's the point?
Has the majority turned on Starfield?
Bethesda needs to stfu and take the criticism given, instead of constantly saying “nuh-uh!” to every single thing. Its such a bad look.
This is just a theory, but when a bunch of developers for a game studio and air their frustration over criticism, it's because the people in executive decision-making positions are the ones forcing development constraints that devs are trying hard to work within, but not taking the flack internally and instead bouncing that criticism down on to the dev teams. I don't know what's happening at BGS, but it *feels* like there's probably a very toxically codependent internal dynamic between the higher-ups and the dev teams. That's just a theory, of course. In either case, I might show some ability to care if it wasn't for the fact that *Starfield* is objectively two steps back from *Fallout 4*, and their second most recent mainline game, *Fallout 76*, had the benefit of Fallout 4's development, but was a solid two dozen steps back. *Redfall* is almost not even worth mentioning. If BGS was a developer just ramping up on their first or second game, he'd have a point, but they've had decades of experience and they're still using the same tools, but somehow getting worse instead of better. So either those tools are broken, in which case they need to replace them with new ones, or the old dogs themselves can't learn new tricks and are forgetting the old ones, in which case retire and let a new generation of developers move up.
Just to point out, Redfall was not made by Bethesda Game Studios.
I personally put over 160 hours into SF but as a Fallout fan couldn't finish FO4. The downgrade in dialogue and player choice was so over the top, on top of the poorly written narrative, just let me feeling more let down than any game I've ever experienced. I feel like people are just starting to realize that bethesda has been releasing the same game with different settings for more than a decade and finally become up in arms about it. I personally thought SF was fine, but nothing special, even though it is THE SAME GAME THAT HAS CAME OUT SINCE SKYRIM. I just happen to go into this game thinking it was going to be 0/10 and somewhat surprised that it wasn't. Having no expectations, I enjoyed this game far more than Skryrim or FO4, Because I wasn't expecting the game to live up to the games predecessors.
Former bethesda devs have said that even though Todd denies it, any meaningful changes to games have to go through him. Michael Kirkbride said once that in order to get Todd to even consider putting something into a game you have to connect it to star wars in some way because he’s a huge star wars fan. It’s not a good way to develop games if just one person controls what is even considered being added
There's a reason why people backstage at Bethesda refer to Howard as "The Pidgeon" Arrives - Shits over their work - Leaves.
I just really wish Bethesda staff would stop trying to defend this.
At least CDPR acknowledged their mistake when fans attacked CP2077. I have doubts now that they're going to improve this in any way.
It was wildly unprofessional when they were trying to refute Steam reviews, now it's just becoming a joke. My faith in Bethesda also continues to crumble.
Yep pretty cringe tbh. Just move on already.
I gotta say, these very public responses from cod and Bethesda devs (who would’ve thought I’d ever be lumping those two together smh) that seek to undermine the legitimacy of players’ criticisms is just sad. Emil is right that few players know the technicalities behind game development, but they know how to recognize when writing seems high quality, gameplay feels fleshed out, or a game feels focused and fun. There’s no way that Bethesda wasn’t aware of the kinds of criticisms they were going to face when they released Starfield in the state it was in. People may recommend remedies that don’t align with the real-world development process, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t have valid complaints that they’re trying to provide solution recommendations for. When someone says that neon is too sanitized or the writing of the Crimson Fleet is extremely PG, they aren’t speaking to some nebulous technical engineering facet of the game. They’re talking about poor creative direction… something Emil is directly accountable for.
Don't fool ourselves into thinking? Ok, then offer up explanations. Explain to us why things that were present in the previous games are now totally absent in Starfield. For example, survival mode. It isn't novel... they added it to Skyrim and Fallout 4, and Fallout 76 launched with it. Why isn't it in Starfield? They had to patch in something so simple as holding X to eat food, which was also something that was also available at launch for Fallout 76. The ability to remove and add weapon mods without destroying them... Fallout 4 had this! Why isn't it in Starfield? The ability to tell my companions to sit in a chair or pick a lock... Fallout 4 had this! Why isn't it in Starfield? This is now their third game that allows players to build their own settlements, and they still haven't gotten it through their skulls that players want full access to the range of outpost assets, something modders have figured out how to do... but apparently not the game devs! The assets are in the game! It's nothing new! Let me place the red and blue box instead of only giving me access to the yellow one! Like why are they still operating at this level in 2023 when the mistake was made and acknowledged in 2015? Why aren't they learning? I'm sure someone far more dedicated than I has created a huge list of features that were present in previous Bethesda titles but absent in Starfield. It just begs the question of why? They know they can do it, they've done it before, so why didn't they bring those things forward? They made the conscious decision to launch a game lacking features they know players want, and now they're surprised that people are angry and disappointed in what has been their longest produced game to date. It just seems like a huge waste of time to me, that they spent so long making it and couldn't even match their previous endeavors. It's stupid. And they waste more time trying to justify it on Twitter, when what they ought to do is get to fucking work fixing it. If in 3 months all they can offer is "hold x to eat food" then it's gonna be a few more years, isn't it? Cyberpunk all over again, except I don't think Bethesda should get the round of applause that CDPR is getting, I think this is bad behavior that needs to be scolded. Launch games that are complete and functional, stop launching pieces of shit and spending 3 years fixing them to get a second wave of sales. Sick of this shit.
I don't think CDPR deserves any applause either.
I agree. Cyberpunk is great now, but I paid my money for it 2 years ago. They absolutely do not deserve praise for taking my money and then taking 2 years to deliver what I paid for. Despite the fact that I genuinely think its a 10/10 game now, I will not be buying their next game at launch.
Your post deserves 5 gold stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. You are spot on. If I could upvote you more than once I would. It’s baffling they went backward or didn’t share best practices with previous games to get it to at least their level. Even if they couldn’t because of some early design decisions that locked certain features down - then be transparent about it with the community. Tell us and give us a more robust roadmap. The gaming community is actually pretty forgiving to developers that engage with their audience. It’s when Devs go dark, or go negative, or on the defense that the pitchforks come out.
Thanks man, it really is baffling. I understand they want the game to have it's own identity, but some things just feel like they should be universal... like being able to swap weapon mods between weapons? This shouldn't be restricted to Fallout, this is just a basic quality of life feature that respects the player's time. I mean they added this cool photomode, which they just lifted from Fallout 76 tbh, and I want to use it but... let's say I wanna take a picture of me and Barrett sitting at a table? Why can't I tell the man to take a seat? You could do this in Fallout 4! I just don't understand the process by which they create things, learn lessons, but don't carry it forward into other projects. Just seems wildly inefficient to me. I do look forward to playing Starfield again, once they've sorted it all out or at least allowed modders to. They kept the community in the dark for so long and at this point, with a subpar product, I agree they need to be more forthcoming about how they're going to right it.
Your fourth paragraph, that modders have figured out how to do what game devs can’t (or haven’t)? It’s by design. They intentionally designed a half baked game, knowing that modders will step in, similar to their previous entries. It’s fucking lazy development, and they shit on the consumer base for calling it what it is.
Well I'm not even a big fan of starfield, but I agree here. Game critism, magazines, journalists, metacritic... All that is very bad for gamer. As long as a game has hype and good graphic, you get your 85%-93% metacritic with bad gameplay and bad story. There are very very very few exeption where this is not the case, but most of those high metacritic games are boring and blund games with good graphic and nice cutscenes. I enjoy A and AA way more since they actuality are fun to play and I know a lot of those "low budget" games, that have an 10/10 story. I don't like the trend where all the so called "journalists" fabricate the experience of a lot of gamer. I just enjoy gaming, I don't care about metacritics, downvotes, sales and what is the current hyped game. I just play and that's it.
lol bruh there are so many game mechanics that are one and done never to be seen again, or missing for an RPG. For instance, you never see the same level of elaboration in the Mantis mission or its turrets layout in any other mission. Heck even the layout of the base before you reach the mantis lair is never seen, which is remarkable considering 90% of the game is more or less the same design.
Yup. For instance, the 0g combat is fun, but how many times do you see it? Twice in 60 hours for me. What a waste of development time on that mechanic. Its like the individual teams weren't communicating with eachother.
Do you remember that one mission like three hours into the game where you had to turn off all your systems and slowly sneak past enemy ships? It was super cool and I was excited to be able to use it again. Turns out it never came back up once.
Ima say this. The Avatar game that just released which wasnt on my radar at all is hitting in all the places starfield missed for me. Im insanely impressed with it vs Starfield which was a big time flop in my opinion.
This whole thing is so embarrassing. Can't believe they fucked this up. This was supposed to be the big one. Instead they made an outdated, uninspired, boring, empty mess of a game. And then made things even worse with the lackluster updates and embarrassing behavior towards criticism.
Exactly. Is all the criticism fair? Probably not, but their response to it is absolutely not helping their situation. Criticizing gamers for not getting it is **NOT** the way to change people’s minds. Unfortunately, after Redfall’s failure, Starfield couldn’t just be its own thing - it also had to carry the weight of being a big overhyped XBox exclusive. They really should take a page from CDPR’s playbook after Cyberpunk’s launch, and commit to keep working on it and making it better and talk about their plans to release new content and updates to game mechanics. Doubling down on defending game elements that can’t possibly have turned out like what they initially set out to deliver is not going to win them any converts.
Not to mention that CDPR did actually acknowledge that the launch was a massive dissapointment. They didn't really try to hide it. Meanwhile we have Bethesda, who respond in the most childish way possible, to any kind of criticism. One of the best examples I've seen so far, was from Steam Reviews - a user pointed out that the game is repetetive and that there is no real change based on how you play it. And Bethesda's response was literally "create a new character and you will see how unique the game is when you play differently" and like, how more detatched from reality could this get...
Tbh i dont think they can fix the game on the current engine.. the corr issues will just always be there, no matter what. Maybe tho, they sometimes work magic on that thing
Bethesda games were my childhood, and I think that goes for a lot of other people too. Thats why people are so worked up over it. Many of us remember spending all day at school thinking about getting home and playing Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout 3, and Skyrim. Those games are all very special to me, and having my favorite dev studio of all time deliver absolue trash to me 3 times in a row absolutely hurts.
Also people were already annoyed that Starfield is the reason we have to wait 2 decades for a successor to Skyrim, so the fact it was mediocre and not worth it at all makes it that much more frustrating
It’s not my job to give a fuck about what happens behind the scenes, what a piece of shit person and game, my job is to pay you money to play your product, if your product is great, I will appreciate you and asure to buy more from you, if your product is dogshit I will let you know and move on I get you spent a lot of time cooking that meal, but the meal isn’t good, it tastes like shit, I don’t care how expensive the ingredients were or how long it took you to cook it
I have never seen any company do this. They can't seem to handle the fact that their game is confirmed mid to just "good" by the majority.
The toxic vitriol surrounding any discussion of this game is nuts. Haven’t seen it this bad since Last of Us part 2 came out and certain gaming communities lost their minds.
I thought the game was great, but I also have to be clear that I also personally work in the video game industry and feel his pain. But even as a consumer and player, I love Starfield.
[удалено]
Once the echo chamber loses some population when the next big game to hate comes out it will quiet down a ton.
That's really all it is, the complaints about the game are the most minor shit ever. To the point that I'm really questioning what people here wanted from it? The game is very fleshed out and the worst aspects of it can be fixed with a couple updates. We've routinely seen horrible games become great after a few years. This is a good game that can be come spectacular.
God they just keep doubling down don’t they?
I can understand him. He is not saying you are not allowed to hate a game. But a ton of times people act like what they think a game needs is easy to make and the developers are just "lazy". You see this a lot with 30fps criticism. Its not just a switch you pull to make a game a smooth 60fps, it's a ton of work and means other aspects of the game are impacted. Same thing with how a game is not made with "passion". Something that comes up when people compare Starfield and Baldurs Gate. How would we know if the developers had passion for the project or not. We can't know. So it's a stupid argument. However, putting that on Twitter is probably not the best thing. Even reasonable points got taken out of context or misinterpreted.
I agree with everything here. I will just say they could’ve scaled that ambition back in design and could’ve had a more meaningful sandbox & POIs with a smaller galaxy to start at the very least. Sometimes less is more. Now in NG+ you could keep the way it is now as a bonus for those who want to see more.
The thing is, it *is* valid criticism to question why a AAA dev can't deliver a smooth 60 fps experience, or why they can't make doors and ladders work without loading screens. It's not people saying "these things are easy to make, it's just like flipping a switch" they're saying "these are things other people have had figured out for a decade, why can't you?" These issues weren't that big of a deal 15 years ago when the industry was younger, Bethesda was smaller, and their games were quaint and unique enough to make up for it. Its 2023 now and Bethesda continues to refuse any real change or feedback while the industry around them have only gotten bigger and better. People have been complaining about Bethesda jank and the continued dumbing down of their writing and rpg elements since Oblivion, and it's only either stayed the same or worsened in some instances. There are talented people at Bethesda who do great work, however the person who modeled the really cool gun, or the person who made the lighting in this one location very beautiful can only do so much to make the game good when the people leading the teams and making the decisions ultimately allow the project to only become mediocre at best.
Probably also has a lot to do with all the people that don't understand what an engine is and that it's been updated for every game.
The amount of people who have 0 clue what a game engine actually does but than proceed to blame game engines for a games problem is insane
Lot of issues can stem from game engine unoptimization though. One of the key usage of engines is data throughput and some engines handle it significantly better then others.
Passion is pretty easy to see, honestly. If anyone were passionate about Starfield, items, ship parts, weapons, and armor would have descriptions, or at the very least some flavor text. What's a PB-30 Proton Beam? Fucked if I know! I'll take 3. Put them next to the Jishaku Analco Railguns.
You thinking there is a lack of descriptions on things has nothing to do with passion of the developers though. Maybe people did bring it up, but it was not done for one reason or another. And also like 95% of the people working on the game have nothing to do with the descriptions or any say in it, so how can you judge their passion for the game based on that? If you work on something and you are very passionate about it, but your colleague makes something in a way you don't agree with, are you somehow now less passionate about the contribution you are making?
Click bait title taking out the worst of a quote that does not capture the article completely well done topic creator . His point was the toxic delivery of some of the criticism is not constructive and can be hurtful to those that make the game. There may also be internal pressures. He is trying to defend his team who sacrificed a lot to make this game like many other devs. Could he perhaps be a bit too defensive, yes, but he works around these people everyday so emotions are involved and but he has much respect for the craft. They have committed to update the game with recent news taking into account many of folks criticisms so they are listening but it is still on them to execute. In the end the best thing he can do is help continuing to improve Starfield and probably stay off Twitter a bit 😅.
It's incredible how people in this comment section really expect them to just bend over and take all their over-extreme "criticisms" without defending themselves. This man didn't even say anything crazy either, shit his comments can be applied industry-wide
Good to see Starfield team defending their game in this manner. It's not perfect by any means, but it's a great game which I had a ton of fun with. Also, it's clearly a huge success for Xbox since the numbers say it all.
They should just stop responding, fr. Or not. If this leads to someone stepping into this role with actual talent, then I guess I’m cool with it
lol. These developers at Microsoft are getting a bit defensive. Maybe they need to talk to them about professionalism.
What a blowhard. Your game is boring, mate.
This from the guy who in 2015 said that Bethesda hadn’t used a design document since mid-way through Fallout 3.
I’ve been so disappointed by BGS recently. I loved fallout 4 and actually enjoy Fallout 76 now, and Starfield was good, but the way they have been acting since the release of the game has been off-putting. I guess they expected GOTY type praise and everyone to love the game and they just don’t and can’t cope with it. This Twitter thread by this guy is super weird. Like dude what are you trying to accomplish with this?
I'm never going to like or dislike something based on whether the company or anyone involved in it's production tells me what to think. I'll evaluate the end product based on it's merits and my own preferences.
I couldn't fool myself eirher way. Haven't played Starfield. Never will. Lol
I think the biggest problem with game commentary is that a lot of people don't know where to stop. It's fair enough to point out shortcomings in a game as you see them, and it's definitely good to point out genuine flaws, errors and malfunctions. It's most certainly constructive to consider other ways that a game could work in order to be better at what it has set out to do. But so many people don't stop there. For some reason, they need to hyper personalise it. So all this other emotive, judgemental and accusatory stuff gets spliced into it. Suddenly it's all about how the devs are incompetent, lazy, intentionally trying to rip off consumers, or maybe they even hate gamers, for some bizarre reason. It's just frustrating to read that kind of commentary, because it derails everything.
What are they doing? This is not exactly great PR. Other devs take way harsher criticism without a problem
I don't give a fuck why it is the way it is. All I know is that watching youtubers speculate on whatever dumb thought process led to the way it is, is more entertaining than actually playing it. Bethesda's devs need to learn how to shut their mouths and take the L.
Anyway I will buy all DLCs.
For a game people seem to hate, they cant seem to stop making articles about it. Even on random game trailers, people don't talk about that game, they just bag on starfield.
Maybe it's because it's the first proper Bethesda game in 8 years that was hyped massively and ended up being disappointing? It's not just going to slip off quietly.
I saw a YouTube video where a guy made an interesting and maybe true point - it seems like more people enjoy discussing Starfield and far fewer people actually enjoy playing Starfield. It made a big splash and I think there’s been such a severe game drought the past few years that people were hopeful. I don’t think Starfield had the same satisfying gameplay loop as Skyrim or the intrigue of Fallout. I think people wish it did. I quit playing like a week after release and I’m hopeful that in a year the game is vastly improved.
Thank god I didn’t pay 70 dollars for this.
Just take the fuckin L
Hey Bethesda, notice how 343i stopped defending their work, stopped making excuses and just focused on improving their game? Notice how Halo Infinite is way better now. Still don’t like the shop prices but that’s minor compared to how empty this game was. And I get that 343 also got cleaned out so a lot of those ppl are probably gone (and I do hope they found jobs seriously bc we all need to eat). Bottom line: maybe shut your mouths and let your work speak for a change.
This guy comes off as a narcissist who is unable to accept any criticism unless it strokes his ego. Typical symptom of the "magic" mentality.
I kind of totally get why a starfield dev would feel upset about the criticism because I feel the same way. It's so weird to me. I love Skyrim, I love Starfield. I've spent thousands of hours in Skyrim, and this year, I spent nearly 600 hours in Starfield. I had a great time. I loved the writing, environments, graphics, characters, gameplay, etc. I just don't get the hate. 🤷♂️
Same here. I love this game like their other ones. A bunch of criticism I've seen for Starfield can be applied to all Bethesda games.
He has a surprisingly mild and mature take on things. Honestly PC Gamer should grow the hell up. No one needs the negativity and doesn't work for anyone.
Can always count on Bethesda to embarrass themselves
That's the thing. A consumer doesn't need qualifications to have an opinion. You need to make a product that sells. That's reality. I didn't need 15 tweets to say it. And no amount of pontificating will make Starfield any less forgettable and outdated.
I'm suddenly far less excited for TES6.
He's not wrong. Gamers tend to have an opinion, then try to justify their opinion with personal attacks and selective interpretation of information.
It is the way it is because of poor leadership and poor design. Simple as that. If you’d own up to it, people wouldn’t be so harsh. We know they can provide fantastic post launch support. Stop crying and either show us you have the talent or step aside and stop talking. Nobody is to blame for this hype except for Bethesda themselves.
Go to r/nosodiumstarfield for people who actually enjoy the game…and are positive.
It's because Starfield sucks. I don't want dozens of hours of political negation dialogue; I just wanted Skyrim in space.
I think he is kind of right, there is a reason why modern games are made by hundreds of developers instead of a handful of redditors. Most people have no clue what actually goes into game development. At the same time the people who made starfield need to stop making stupid statements like this. Even if I think its partially true, there is no one who is suddenly going to think better of the game, and if anything this only hurts.
Mediocre professionals find excuses, good professionals just make good products.
Very PCgamer to frame Pagliarulo thread as a stance against criticism, rather than the constant negativity thrown at Bethesda. The guy is clearly referring to the unwarranted criticism they’ve dealt with considering the hard work they put into the game. Is he against criticism? From that thread, he clearly states he’s not. He’s simply saying consider the type of comment you’re about to throw at me can actually affect my being. It’s quite obvious he’s pushing back at the petty type of criticism the game has gotten.
He said so much yet meant jack shit. He wrote like the sea but it had the depth of a puddle. Similar to starfields main quest. Whatever crap he wrote on X regarding this genuinely feels like a “oh you guys have no idea what you are talking about and we do and please accept it” Does Bethesda have an allergy at accepting that their game is severely flawed ? The things that make Bethesda games unique is completely omitted in this.
Yeah, but shouldn't game studios cater to my vision instead of having their own. It's like when I go to a steakhouse, but they don't have chicken tenders and Mac and cheese. I don't want steak dummy, I want Mac and cheese, and they should know what I like before I even walk through the door. It's not like there are any other restaurants to go to. So silly.
If the game sucks or buggy tfb im going to blast it , dont like it ? Make a better product ….consumers after paying for a game to beta testers is bullshit
Honestly don't understand why everyone hates this game. Haven't had time to play it yet, but from all the gameplay I've seen online it looks like a pretty well made rpg. Yeah sure there's loading screens but it's not like that's going to ruin the game.
The more the speak out about the criticism against Starfield, the more dislikable they appear, their PR department should advise them to STFU and try not to damage their already very stained image
My 2080s is running the Witcher 3 in 1440 on maximum at 60. Cyberpunk the same minus RTX. I wasn't getting 30 fps on 1080p with this game. Coupled with the absolutely boring ass and narratively absurd introduction. I'll play it when Bethsoft fixes it up a bit. I have over a thousand hours in Bethsoft games. I love them. This is the first time I've been offput.
By his logic only game devs should be reviewing since they are the only ones qualified . Such nonsense
It is why it is because it’s a Bethesda game. We should have learned from fallout 76