Man of Honour
£24.@CAT-THE-FIFTH
I just found another bug. An NPC just popped out of the floor and is in a seated position but there is no chair. I took a screenshot thos time
***The Official Starfield Thread*** (As endorsed by TNA)
- Thread starter Tek81
- Start date
Lighting has always been an issue in Bethesda games - for its time, the texture work in Skyrim was really impressive (unmodded Skyrim SE below) but shonky lighting has never been able to show off the assets at their best.
Whilst the lighting model in Starfield is greatly improved, there's still moments when your character looks just plain weird (getting up from the cockpit in your ship there's a moment where the lighting is terrible).
Re: the animations, they're not the best but they're made worse by the fact that you can approach and talk to a character from almost any angle and the animation engine tries to accommodate you - if the character has their back to you they'll try to turn their head, and if that's not sufficient then they'll try to turn to face you but if they're obstructed then they may not be able to face you in a way that looks natural.
Everything in the game 'inhabits' the game world - and with that kind of complexity you inevitably get some crazy jank at times.
For everyone suggesting they move to a new engine - what engine? There's nothing out there that has the level of bespoke scripting that the Creation Engine has built up over the decades - if they switched to (say) Unreal, they'd have to recreate all that in Unreal from scratch - and Unreal 5.x can't even run games well that were built from scratch *for* Unreal. I think CD Projekt Red's going to have a nightmare time delivering their first Unreal title because Unreal isn't designed to do *any* of the things that CDPR are famous for in its games.
@mid_gen You're probably the most qualified person on this subject, what to your knowledge is preventing BGS from moving to something like UE5 and modifying it instead of sticking with their inhouse one? Other than the very obvious cost (including time for familiarisation)
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Soldato
I think it's not that it needs to switch to a different engine, but that the engine needs restarting.
The unreal engine for instance isn't the same one used for games 20 years ago. That was version 1, now version 15 etc.
The engine used in starfield feels like the exact same one used in oblivion, which iirc was new and not the same engine used for morrowind, and it just feels like they are putting band aids on to improve bits, but will always be limited at the end of the day by the engines capability.
Witcher 3 engine did a pretty good job of running an RPG with all that is involved.
Do we really believe there would be a massive improvement though just from a new engine? The engine isn't preventing them from writing fleshed out characters or better stories.
The 'romance' is a good example, you have the option to tell a companion you love them despite not speaking to them ever outside of any quests, and suddenly you can get married lol.
The 'romance' is a good example, you have the option to tell a companion you love them despite not speaking to them ever outside of any quests, and suddenly you can get married lol.
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Soldato
Indeed.
Thing is, its not a suggestion. Its inevitable imo. Whats the alternative to changing engine, that they continue to use an already archaic Creation engine? That might be ok for next year, or the year after, but is this Creation engine still going to be up to scratch in 5 years time in 2028, in 10 years time, in 15 years time , 20 years time? In my opinion, if they want to do the things that they want to do, and continue to keep parity with other game studios titles, they are going to have to change engine. Whether thats now or in 10 years time, at some point the bullet will have to be bitten, even if its them designing a new engine themselves, I just dont believe that this engine is going to be good enough next decade.
Definitely not just from a better engine (the writing in Starfield is like something written by a teenager for their English coursework) , but a new engine would certainly help with some aspects. As I say, the engine isnt the root and cause of Starfields issues but its hampered Starfield imo.
Man of Honour
That's where my gripe with Starfield comes in. No matter what side or main quest I do, none of the the characters I have seen o far after 30 hours made me go "well I like you because you seem cool" or "I hate you for what you just did/said" - They look and feel like robots reading lines with no actual persona to them. I want to be able to feel like I'm playing a part of the story, like fleshing out a movie so to speak, this is what other games do really well and you grow bonds with certain characters because of their persona or story trajectory which stems from excellent scripting. The only reason I keep Sarah around is to laugh at how ridiculous she is whenever I move a pen on someone's desk "I WON'T STAND FOR THIS! YOU ARE ON YOUR OWN" - Really Sarah?? See you back on Frontier...
We are in 2023, it's fair to expect a AAA game to immerse us in a number of ways, for me the visuals and audio have to be cinema levels of quality, as well as excellent character driven scripting. The only time a protagonist that never speaks has done it excellently at immersion is Gordon Freeman, but that's only due to the excellent characters and scientists who have their USPs which makes you connect with them, again, Starfield has no characters like those. Can you imagine a Barney type sidekick like from Blue Shift in Starfield? Would be awesome I imagine. Instead we get someone who judges you for looking at a desk the wrong way.
If they recreated it in UE5, it would look and run a lot better no doubt, but the characters would not change one bit. It seems all of the gripes mentioned are typical Bethesda, and that's probably why I never really found them appealing, but as a massive scifi/action/future nerd, Starfield appealed to me on its premise alone hence why I got it and have put time into it - Although how much more I will play it is quickly fading away now that other games with actual characters have come out, or will be coming out over the next month.
Edit*
Some typos.
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I agree with that completely. This is also where some people fall over, you can still enjoy a game whilst acknowledging all the areas it lacks quality, heck I've enjoyed plenty of games that don't even really do anything well. Is Starfield my GOTY? Maybe (not finished BG3 yet and will play Phantom wotsit), but is it 'actual' GOTY material? not a chance.
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Essentially it *is* the same Creation Engine (which is why I suspect there's a lot of loading in Starfield - well, that and they have to hit XBox Series S as a target).
Adding a new graphics layer isn't as complicated as reworking all that scripting code (which is what makes games of Starfield's scale possible for Bethesda) - there's performance trade-offs though for adding new visual bling when your underlying 'world' engine is getting pretty dated now - I imagine there's a huge amount of 'technical debt'.
Re: CDPR - like Bethesda, they built the engine around their requirements for the stories they wanted to tell (although Red Engine is substantially more modern than Creation in many ways - note 'modern' ≠ 'better') - which I why I'm concerned on their switch to Unreal - I think they're really going to struggle to create a Witcher 3-style game using Unreal.
Ok so the next game switches to Unreal..
Same awful character designs
Same awful storyline
Same lack of features
Bethesda's lack of bug testing
Less opportunity for modding as it needs to be started from scratch
Where's the engine blame then? Most of this is being fixed by the community, which again lays at the feet of Bethesda being ****
Same awful character designs
Same awful storyline
Same lack of features
Bethesda's lack of bug testing
Less opportunity for modding as it needs to be started from scratch
Where's the engine blame then? Most of this is being fixed by the community, which again lays at the feet of Bethesda being ****
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Yup, there are certainly more issues than just the engine, as I say, its not the root and cause, the engine is just something which hampers Bethesda
I don't think keeping 'parity with other game studios titles' is something that remotely concerns Bethesda (maybe Microsoft?) - how many other devs even remotely attempt anything as complex as a typical Bethesda game? Only CDPR to my knowledge, and even then, they're very different beasts.
People have been telling Bethesda to switch engines since Oblivion in 2002.
It just feels like a lack of effort from the devs, which is difficult to say given it took them 10 years to make it. The game engine is 15 years out of date, and as MRK says, there are no NPCs you can gel with - just like robots reading lines. There is nothing new or innovative. The game feels soulless. I thought it was just ok at first but the more I play the more boring it feels.
The only thing I think the devs have done well compared to other games is the space combat, but essentially it's mostly fetch quests
The only thing I think the devs have done well compared to other games is the space combat, but essentially it's mostly fetch quests
And this... It's not the engines fault the creators just can't be **** to be make a good game!
That simply makes it all the more important to use a newer engine then doesnt it, the gaming landscape was a very different place in 2002, what was deemed acceptable in 2002 is quite different to whats acceptable now 20 years later and will be even more different to whats acceptable in 2043 in another 20 years time. As I say, does anyone on here seriously think that this engine will be up to task in 10,15,20 years time? Truly? I mean, really truly...would you all be happy to play a new AAA game with this engine in 20 years time? I'm pretty sure I wont.
I mean, every game Bethesda has developed has been a hit for them - including Starfield and (shockingly) Fallout 76 - what impetus is there to change?
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Those devs need sacking then.
My thoughts are that there are only certain reasons why a dev doesnt deliver the best they can, its either :
Lack of Time
Lack of Money
Lack of Ability
Lack of Engine Capability
Lack of Motivation/Care.
So, if I was to speak , off the record, to a Starfield Dev, and ask them, "Did you do your best on Starfield, did you deliver what you wanted to do and if not, why not" .... I wonder how many would answer "I wanted to do X but couldnt because we ran out of time and had to release" , "I wanted to do X but we didnt have the budget for it" , "I wanted to do X but I just didnt know how to do that", "I wanted to do X but thats not possible within the engines limitations" and/or "I wanted to do X but I just couldnt be bothered" ... oh and "I wanted to do X but all of the above"
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At this point I think you'd have to define "hit" , if we're talking in sales, most Starfield players are playing via Gamepass, so not really sales per se. If we're talking critical acclaim, then I'd say that opinions and acclaim on Starfield are actually quite a mixed bag, for me at least the excuse "oh its Bethesda, thats why its that way" , just doesnt cut the mustard any more and frankly.."its because its dev/company X" shouldnt be a valid excuse for any gamer on any game.
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