Why are Bethesda games so consistent with their godawful movement?

Abysmal on 30/6/2015 at 12:56

Edit: Discussed.

froghawk on 30/6/2015 at 13:50

I feel like a lot more than the movement is wonky as hell. Combat has been clunky in all of their games, the writing generally sucks, the level scaling is miserable, the quests are 90% generic wastes of time, there are no real choices that impact the world, the graphics and tech are always lagging behind other games of the period... the worlds are often compelling, but at the end of the day that's really the main pull. They're games that give you a ton of stuff to do in a cool world, but pretty much all of said stuff is pretty miserably executed. Compare that to Dishonored, a Bethesda-published game by a different dev where there's a lot less to do but it's all way more polished and fun (and there's still plenty of player choice), and I think the flaws become very clear. Obsidian improved on a lot of this with New Vegas (better writing, a better faction system with real choices and repercussions, no level scaling making for a very difficult game early on, less generic dungeons, etc.) but it still had the problem of being a Gamebryo game building on Bethesda's basic assets, many of which were poorly executed.

tl;dr: I'd much rather Bethesda focused on making a smaller game where everything is better executed than something massive where most of the stuff to do, mechanics, writing and tech are crap. And unless they start moving in that direction, I'm done with Bethesda games.

henke on 30/6/2015 at 14:11

Hey guys is this the Bethesda hate thread?

Bethesda more like Poopesda am I rite

froghawk on 30/6/2015 at 14:18

Yes.

Starker on 30/6/2015 at 14:29

Having gotten into Witcher 3 recently, I'd have to say that Bethesda's games just seem lacking in comparison. I don't remember who said it but "wide as an ocean and deep as a puddle" is spot on. It seems that there is just so much more to do in Witcher 3 and even the side quests have a lot more effort put into them.

I still have a lot of fond memories of Morrowind, though. I wonder if it's just nostalgia.

Tony_Tarantula on 30/6/2015 at 14:52

Quote Posted by Starker

Same criticism applies to Bioware games. If the Witcher 3 is an equivalent of an epic fantasy novel, Dragon Age Inquisition stacks up like a Little Golden Book by comparison.

There's a lot to be said for characters that have realistic motivations and personalities(instead of being cardboard cutouts ala most American games), put even a mediocum of effort into creating quests that are more interesting than rote package fetching, and design the game so that the consequences of player decision are difficult to change and not immediately apparent.

Still if we're talking about movement in the two games you've gotta bring Roach into this. Fuck Roach, Roach rides like a river barge driven by a captain who is both drunk and stoned.

Quote:

I still have a lot of fond memories of Morrowind, though. I wonder if it's just nostalgia.

Not entirely. Granted the combat was shit but there was a lot of effort put into creating an interesting gameworld with it's own cohesive internal logic.

faetal on 30/6/2015 at 15:38

I've derived many MANY hours of enjoyment out of Bethsoft games. That said - the amount of mods I use, a chunk of that credit has to go to modders.
They're far from perfect, so it's easy to lob a tonne of criticism at the games, but on the whole, they're just great fun and very compelling. If the criticism is good criticism, that just means they're great fun despite their flaws.

Tony_Tarantula on 30/6/2015 at 17:40

The strength is in their immersion. They're good in the same way that Marvel movies are, they're great fun while your watching them but when you stop and think about everything it doesn't seem quite so good in hindsight.

froghawk on 30/6/2015 at 18:41

When I think about a lot of games that I loved, including recent open-world types that I enjoyed, it makes me want to play them again. When I think about Bethsoft games, I get a unique feeling of regret for having invested so much time in them with so little reward. I never feel any sort of nostalgia or desire to return to them - I actively feel bad about the experience. Something about them makes me want to keep playing them while I'm doing it but regret having put the time in later, and that alone makes me want to avoid them. And I think the core problem is that there's simply no substance there - so many hours to invest with so little to take away.

faetal on 30/6/2015 at 21:07

Different strokes for different folks. What used to be fun was hearing Koki have one of his diatribes about how Fallout 3 was objectively bad and that anyone who enjoyed it had objectively bad taste and were probably bad people.