The Elder Scrolls VI

[Joe Von Zombie]

Nah, I'm good. But with that logic, I can also say that God of War didn't deserve GOTY over Red Dead 2. Last time I said that I got attacked for it. But that's just my opinion, you see, I don't go around stating something as if it's objective like you currently are. I can understand why some might love GOW, but I firmly believe it's a drastically inferior game to RDR2. also since Bladurs Gate 3's combat isn't my thing, should I say it's popularity isn't a metric of it's quality?

And let's be honest, the New Vegas fanboys that constantly trash Bethesda, Fallout 3, and even Fallout 4 which I think is their weakest game, always come back and continue to play them. I wonder why that is? That's the funniest thing about the bethesda haters. They always trash the company, and think none of their games are more than a 7/10, while also acting like Skyrim, and their games before that were just successful "flukes". The revisionism is astounding. Just say the game isn't for you. why is that so hard? Even if it's a game of the year game, like elden ring, just say it isn't for you. That game wasn't for me, but I'm not gonna say it was undesderving of it's praise.

Whether or not you enjoyed a game is subjective. Whether or not a game is well designed is objective and quantifiable.
The actual game part of Red Dead 2 is objectively bad design too so that's a really bad example as well.

There are complete basic game design concepts that are thrown out the window in favor alleged player freedom and padding out that play time. They're so afraid to lock the player out of content that character builds essentially don't matter, choices are irrelevant and how you approach things is irrelevant. Level scaling on items and enemies is objectively bad design because it kills any sense of progression and if you find an item intended for late game too early, it effectively makes it useless, combat that's based on RNG rather the player's stats is also objectively bad RPG design for obvious reasons. Then there's the actual shooting mechanics and combat. Outside of VATS, there's barely any audio visual feedback to make the guns feel like have any weight or impact so you're either submitting to RNGesus or you're forced to endure shooting mechanics so bad they make late 90s eurojank shooters look like Quake. That's just Fallout 3 as a stand alone game. As a sequel to Fallout 2, things get even worse. To Bethesda's credit, Starfield has addressed a lot of these problems by simply changing the focus to being a solid fps with RPG elements rather than a half-baked RPG system trying to approximate a FPS.

For me personally, I gave them another shot with Fallout 4 to see if they had actually learned anything from New Vegas, unfortunately they did not. They decided to double down on what they did with Fallout 3 and managed to make game that's worse. Also a lot of these games are on gamepass so the barrier to entry is nonexistent so why not play them? That's how I'm playing Starfield and that game has managed to impress me despite its technical warts. Don't act like we're rushing to pre-order while actively ****ting on them because that is not the case. BGS is never getting a 70 dollar purchase out of me.

I also wouldn't call it "revisionism." Mainstream gaming journalism tastemakers simply do not have nearly the same level of control over the narrative as they did in 2008 thanks to YouTube, steam and the looming death of Gamestop. Your average gamer is far more better informed about games now than they've ever been so its easier to weed through bull**** press blurbs and figure out what these games actually are.

Furthermore, I don't have to be nice to a game with bad design just because it's successful. It's not my responsibility to protect your emotional attachment to a product just because the majority of its player base is either ignorant to or dismissive of its flaws. I'm also not the studio who bought a respected IP and decided to churn out three cynical cash grabs either.

 

[Gothamsknight]

Whether or not you enjoyed a game is subjective. Whether or not a game is well designed is objective and quantifiable.
The actual game part of Red Dead 2 is objectively bad design too so that's a really bad example as well.

There are complete basic game design concepts that are thrown out the window in favor alleged player freedom and padding out that play time. They're so afraid to lock the player out of content that character builds essentially don't matter, choices are irrelevant and how you approach things is irrelevant. Level scaling on items and enemies is objectively bad design because it kills any sense of progression and if you find an item intended for late game too early, it effectively makes it useless, combat that's based on RNG rather the player's stats is also objectively bad RPG design for obvious reasons. Then there's the actual shooting mechanics and combat. Outside of VATS, there's barely any audio visual feedback to make the guns feel like have any weight or impact so you're either submitting to RNGesus or you're forced to endure shooting mechanics so bad they make late 90s eurojank shooters look like Quake. That's just Fallout 3 as a stand alone game. As a sequel to Fallout 2, things get even worse. To Bethesda's credit, Starfield has addressed a lot of these problems by simply changing the focus to being a solid fps with RPG elements rather than a half-baked RPG system trying to approximate a FPS.

For me personally, I gave them another shot with Fallout 4 to see if they had actually learned anything from New Vegas, unfortunately they did not. They decided to double down on what they did with Fallout 3 and managed to make game that's worse. Also a lot of these games are on gamepass so the barrier to entry is nonexistent so why not play them? That's how I'm playing Starfield and that game has managed to impress me despite its technical warts. Don't act like we're rushing to pre-order while actively ****ting on them because that is not the case. BGS is never getting a 70 dollar purchase out of me.

I also wouldn't call it "revisionism." Mainstream gaming journalism tastemakers simply do not have nearly the same level of control over the narrative as they did in 2008 thanks to YouTube, steam and the looming death of Gamestop. Your average gamer is far more better informed about games now than they've ever been so its easier to weed through bull**** press blurbs and figure out what these games actually are.

Furthermore, I don't have to be nice to a game with bad design just because it's successful. It's not my responsibility to protect your emotional attachment to a product just because the majority of its player base is either ignorant to or dismissive of its flaws. I'm also not the studio who bought a respected IP and decided to churn out three cynical cash grabs either.

Wow. So basically this whole wall of text is essentially you telling me the game I like is objectively bad and it's subjective that I like them but it's still a bad game. Do you realize how that sounds? And Red Dead 2 is one of the highest rated games in history. You can say it has a bad design, but I assure you most people don't feel the same.

I like how BGS games play. I know being able to move objects around. They have a way of immersing me in their games those most others can't. Rockstar has weight to their photo realistic games that feel good to me. I don't see that as bad game design. I also do not regret any of my 186 hours in starfield. You can discreetly call me ignorant if you want, but that just makes me realize all the more why the gaming community has gone to complete ****.

Do you really believe the majority of gamers today are that smart? The whole community craps on 99% games that come out that aren't made by Santa Monica, fromsoft, or CDPR. Let's take cyberpunk 2077 for example. A game that I loved, and beat twice. My first playthrough on Playstation was fun but riddled with 8+ crashes per day. My second was on PC and it was fine. CDPR blatantly lied to their customers, released 45 minutes of fake footage and hid the console version from the public until release. The same community that tries to act like Bethesda committed some sort of crime now act like CDPR did nothing wrong. Because all this hypocritical community does today is excuse one companies BS while profiting off of and bashing another with multiple videos per week. That's the gaming community that has smartened up? Please. And I say that as someone who genuinely defends cyberpunk. I'm surprised you'd put so much stock into YouTube when it's filled with influencers who are looking for an easy pay under the disguise of "pro consumerism". It's BS.


I'm not dismissive of whatever flaws starfield may have. But it's a game I loved, and games that I love I don't look at as being objectively bad. If you hate that BGS got the fallout license, then fair enough. You think their games are mediocre, and that's okay But I do not agree they are objectively poorly made.

 

[Joe Von Zombie]

Wow. So basically this whole wall of text is essentially you telling me the game I like is objectively bad and it's subjective that I like them but it's still a bad game. Do you realize how that sounds? And Red Dead 2 is one of the highest rated games in history. You can say it has a bad design, but I assure you most people don't feel the same.

I like how BGS games play. I know being able to move objects around. They have a way of immersing me in their games those most others can't. Rockstar has weight to their photo realistic games that feel good to me. I don't see that as bad game design. I also do not regret any of my 186 hours in starfield. You can discreetly call me ignorant if you want, but that just makes me realize all the more why the gaming community has gone to complete ****.

Do you really believe the majority of gamers today are that smart? The whole community craps on 99% games that come out that aren't made by Santa Monica, fromsoft, or CDPR. Let's take cyberpunk 2077 for example. A game that I loved, and beat twice. My first playthrough on Playstation was fun but riddled with 8+ crashes per day. My second was on PC and it was fine. CDPR blatantly lied to their customers, released 45 minutes of fake footage and hid the console version from the public until release. The same community that tries to act like Bethesda committed some sort of crime now act like CDPR did nothing wrong. Because all this hypocritical community does today is excuse one companies BS while profiting off of and bashing another with multiple videos per week. That's the gaming community that has smartened up? Please. And I say that as someone who genuinely defends cyberpunk. I'm surprised you'd put so much stock into YouTube when it's filled with influencers who are looking for an easy pay under the disguise of "pro consumerism". It's BS.


I'm not dismissive of whatever flaws starfield may have. But it's a game I loved, and games that I love I don't look at as being objectively bad. If you hate that BGS got the fallout license, then fair enough. You think their games are mediocre, and that's okay But I do not agree they are objectively poorly made.

No, this wall of text was to explain to you that this game you like is poorly designed for the type of game its supposed to be which can be objectively bad in terms design and execution but still be something you enjoy and how the industry hype train of the time can shape one's perspective and how it was designed to do so. Just because something is well received doesn't mean its well designed so people not agreeing with me is irrelevant. Another example; Mortal Kombat has been around for 30 years but didn't come close to being a competent fighting game from design standpoint until 2011.

Obviously, you have to vett the content creators you follow. The shills are typically easy to spot. Nobody I frequent has ever given CDPR a free pass with Cyberpunk. They've called that project out for the mess it was and shoddy business tactics that came with it. Regardless, it's still better than the blatant advertorial format of traditional games media.