Current Events > So is TES: VI...fucked?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Fallout 76 was terrible. Starfield was terrible. TES:VI is nowhere to be found 6 years after being announced.

Maybe the engine is just severely outdated at this point and can't be fixed?

tbh i found the base gameplay and mechanics of starfield fine, there was just way too much nothingness and too many loading screens. i feel the first problem, which was a lot worse for me, will be fixed by it being an elder scrolls game and not a game on empty planets in outer space

It aint looking good

They're trying to figure out how to optimize it enough to fit it on consoles, because that bitch is going to be like 300 gigs minimum.

didn't they say it started pre-production after starfield came out? it's gonna be an absolute minimum of 5 years until we see anything

it was only announced along with starfield to mitigate the fallout of the 76 shitshow

and yes, it'll probably be pretty bad

Blessings of Akatosh are not upon it

It'll be a simplified visual novel this time.

There is absolutely no way on earth it was ever going to live up to any of the expectations.

Skyrim was a medium defining experience, and there are less and less opportunities for that to happen again. I'm sure TES6 will be just fine, but no way in hell will it live up to the decade long (and still going) titan that is Skyrim.

Bethesda's entire design philosophy is lazy and outdated. No engine can fix that.

Thing is it COULD but modern gaming companies simply love the idea of disappointing people. All they need is some decent interesting quests and content and I don't see how it could fail to be compared to skyrim

Map doesn't need to be ungodly huge. But at least a significant bit larger than Skyrim. Maybe double?

Same amount of guilds maybe a few more. Good main questline that isn't short. Throw in another unique questline like the civil war thing.

Same thing with settlements on map size. Doesn't need to be a huge amount more. Perhaps 2-3 more larger ones? Or simply have no filler ones like in Skyrim where some were tiny as hell.

Have radiant quests work more like in Skyrim or brainstorm for longer than 1 day to figure out a better way to do it. Absolutely do NOT do what you did in Fallout 4 and somehow make them super generic trash quests that just repeat over and over.

Somehow they will fuck it up though. I don't have any faith in Bethesda anymore. Shame, they got me back into gaming in 09.

If they continue on the Skyrim path, there is something to look forward to. If they double down on the Starfield design principles, and go on the Starfield path where the next TES game is some multiplane game where you travel to different hub worlds or something stupid, then RIP.

Bethesda is cooked.

Skyrim was shit but people were on the Bethesda Kool-aid

Irony posted...

Skyrim was shit but people were on the Bethesda Kool-aid

Skyrim was different, and perhaps worse than Morrowwind and Oblivion. But you can't deny that it was a juggernaut of the entire industry.

Skyrim was outdated before it was even released.

Skyrim is only still relevant because of modders.

Fallout 76 is actually pretty good, it's just severely held back by technical issues Bethesda refuses to acknowledge or do anything about.

It's not looking good

JumpstyIe posted...

tbh i found the base gameplay and mechanics of starfield fine, there was just way too much nothingness and too many loading screens. i feel the first problem, which was a lot worse for me, will be fixed by it being an elder scrolls game and not a game on empty planets in outer space

This. Starfield wasn't "terrible" it was just there

I hope they're starting to get the point that there need to be changes to the "use the same engine and make it bigger" formula

6 will not have many of the issues of starfield due to being more centralised at least and will let them actually do more of the world building they are usually good at.

But I am guessing it will just be 'average' like starfield was.

Funkydog posted...

6 will not have many of the issues of starfield due to being more centralised at least and will let them actually do more of the world building they are usually good at.

But I am guessing it will just be 'average' like starfield was.

Yeah they won't have to worry about starships flying around in space at least lol or lifeless giant vehicles everywhere

projectpat72988 posted...

Map doesn't need to be ungodly huge. But at least a significant bit larger than Skyrim. Maybe double?

I feel like if you just take Skyrim's map as is and actually make it all one map instead of having instanced separate areas it would be plenty big. Basically make it like TotK.

Mechu posted...

Bethesda's entire design philosophy is lazy and outdated. No engine can fix that.

Shbingo Shbango

Maybe they can use some of that Microsoft money to finally use a modern engine.

1337toothbrush posted...

Maybe they can use some of that Microsoft money to finally use a modern engine.

Microsoft really needs to have their own Source/Unreal equivalent that they just give out for free with the only condition being you make an Xbox version.

JumpstyIe posted...

tbh i found the base gameplay and mechanics of starfield fine, there was just way too much nothingness and too many loading screens. i feel the first problem, which was a lot worse for me, will be fixed by it being an elder scrolls game and not a game on empty planets in outer space

Yeah, Starfield's problem was it stretched itself way to thin. If they had smooshed it down to like, a handful of solar systems and made smaller more detailed planets that had actual things worth exploring it would have been a hell of a lot better.

Now, whether they keep that same Elder Scrolls "just wander about and have fun" or they try to do the huge massive expansive open world bigger than anything you've ever seen and it's gonna suck the shit right out of your butthole with how big and open and great it is, then.. yeah.

St0rmFury posted...

Skyrim is only still relevant because of modders.

Tell me some other thoughts, like how water is wet.

I'm going to go ahead and say, "Yes, ES6 is totally fucked." Bethesda lost their creative energy in favor of a "designed through committee" approach. It's basically demonstrated in Starfield in microcosm form in the Stroud-Ecklund Star-yard mission to design a new starship.

Bethesda let go of ambitious quest design after Oblivion(e.g. the Dark Brotherhood), and let go of ambitious worldspace design after Skyrim. Despite the new space setting, Starfield shows they let go of any thought for originality when they decided to make the player Spaceborn(the space-y equivalent of Dragonborn, complete with Space Shouts).

If ES6 ever releases it's going to feel like a smallscale, singleplayer spinoff of ESO, and probably with similar levels of attention given to microtransaction systems. Modders will largely turn their noses up at it, like they did with Starfield, and let the game quietly die.

I have low expectations given their recent track record, but in all likelihood we're not going to see Elder Scrolls 6 until 2030ish give or take a year or so.

You can't really have information on hand to be preemptively disappointed as we know nothing, other than annoyance that we have such a long wait between mainline installments.

Irony posted...

Skyrim was shit but people were on the Bethesda Kool-aid

https://imgur.com/3db8wHn

I never thought I would see the day where I would agree with Irony!

Well said! I couldn't have said it better myself!

I
https://imgur.com/a/nnRqsRJ
you.

So nice to see someone else who could see that Skyrim was an overhyped, vastly overrated, fucking piece of bug ridden shit that it was just like all Bethesda's crap games.

Bethesda haven't made a good (or even decent) game since Oblivion. Their games have been massive but shallow action adventure titles since Skyrim. i really expect TES6 to be more of the same.

Actually I thought Elder Scrolls Online was pretty decent but that was Zenimax. And the combat gets so fucking repetitive.

Even if Bethesda's at top form they're still going to struggle to recapture Skyrim's popularity, because it had a great hook for mass appeal. For starters, everybody loves dragons, and considering that they were technically a new addition to the series as well, Bethesda had all the ammo they needed to put them front and center and hype the shit out of them (I distinctly remember lore purists being adamant even up to a week before Skyrim's announcement that dragons were long dead and gone from Tamriel and were never coming back). What can ES 6 deliver that's more hype-worthy than finally bringing dragons into the playable games? Outside of doing something drastic like contriving a reason to bring back the Dwemer, I can't really think of anything.

Shouts were an interesting hook as well - a simple, unique, and memorable ability that gave warrior-types easy access to magical abilities and encouraged exploration far better than any of the game's standard loot (standard loot being half-assed in Skyrim even by Bethesda standards). What new ability could Bethesda introduce in ES 6 that tops or even matches Shouts? Can't put that genie in a bottle and limit the player to just the standard fighter / mage / stealth skills of Morrowind and Oblivion. I always thought it would be cool to have the ES 6 protag be a Dragon Breaker, where they can warp time / space in small amounts to create combat effects (and the chief antagonist could be a supremely powerful Thalmor Dragon Breaker who performs grand feats like restoring the Crystal Tower by 'stealing' it from another timeline, which could have unforeseen consequences like weakening the planar barriers and allowing some non-Dagon, non-Molag Bal daedra an opportunity to invade Tamriel).

I also feel like the heavy Norse themes came about at just the right time when people were getting sick of the more generic Central Europe-type fantasy settings.

pretzelcoatl posted...

Skyrim was a medium defining experience

That's sad, shit was mediocre as hell.

TES6 would be a retro revival if released today

Heineken14 posted...

Yeah, Starfield's problem was it stretched itself way to thin. If they had smooshed it down to like, a handful of solar systems and made smaller more detailed planets that had actual things worth exploring it would have been a hell of a lot better.

Now, whether they keep that same Elder Scrolls "just wander about and have fun" or they try to do the huge massive expansive open world bigger than anything you've ever seen and it's gonna suck the shit right out of your butthole with how big and open and great it is, then.. yeah.

I knew this game was doo doo the day they announced more than thousands of planets.

They should've stuck to a select few and made a compelling game. Modders can't even save this one

I bet they are still using the same engine as Oblivion.

Kaiganeer posted...

didn't they say it started pre-production after starfield came out? it's gonna be an absolute minimum of 5 years until we see anything

it was only announced along with starfield to mitigate the fallout of the 76 shitshow

and yes, it'll probably be pretty bad

Yes, they announced it super early because they wanted some positive press after FO76

Did they hemorrhage any big names over the last decade? It might just be the AAA cycle collapsing in on itself, but feels like they've been going the way of other former big studios, just holding on longer.

Nemu posted...

Did they hemorrhage any big names over the last decade? It might just be the AAA cycle collapsing in on itself, but feels like they've been going the way of other former big studios, just holding on longer.

Hines quit but he didn't have much to do with TES

dave_is_slick posted...

That's sad, shit was mediocre as hell.

Spoken like someone that made it to Whiterun one time and then quit.

I think it will be fine. They just stupidly announced it long before it was actually in production. All of their resources were going into Starfield until that released

Depends how many khajit are in it tbh

Hexenherz posted...

Bethesda haven't made a good (or even decent) game since Oblivion.

Morrowind > New Vegas > Oblivion

Friends,

I just went back and played Oblivion, and Fallout 3. and those were good games.

they had humor.

Starfield was bland. did not want to "offend" anyone.

I put 500+ hours into it, because I bought this new box, and wanted
to use it. but I should have bought a PS5 instead.

like you, I also fear for the next Elder scrolls.

Did you play Elder scrolls Online???? I put hours into that game too.

They'll keep it in development hell until people stop buying more copies of Skyrim, which is never.

Cheater87 posted...

I bet they are still using the same engine as Oblivion.

It's been longer than that.

Oblivion had an interesting world and complete garbage everything else.

Lol I quoted the wrong post

Hexenherz posted...

Bethesda haven't made a good (or even decent) game since Oblivion.

MegamanX299 posted...

Morrowind > New Vegas > Oblivion

Bethesda didn't make New Vegas. Obsidian did using the Fallout engine.

I think TES VI has better hopes than Starfield unless Tod comes out and it's "All of Tamriel in one game, with no scaling for simplicity. Those mountains? Hours to climb" or some dumb bullshit <_<

Im not concerned. I have loved all of the Elder Scroll games despite tons of people who keep telling me they are getting worse and I thought Skyrim was fantastic even though so many people try to convince me its trash.

Looking forward to the next one. However Ill wait for a couple years for any and all DLC/expansion and most all of the bugs worked out before I pick up a GOTY edition. Same I do with Dragon Age, or Witcher, or any major rpg of this size.

So now matter when it launches itll be another 2 years for me.