Starfield: Doomed from the Beginning?

Once more, I delve into the Midfield to buy myself enough time to make a better video next week. I just realized I talk too fast, I should try slowing down a little.
Here’s links to the mods I used/mentioned in this video:
StarUI Inventory
PC: www.nexusmods.com/starfield/m...
StarUI HUD
PC: www.nexusmods.com/starfield/m...
StarUI Workbench
PC: www.nexusmods.com/starfield/m...
StarUI ShipBuilder
PC: www.nexusmods.com/starfield/m...
StarUI Outpost
PC: www.nexusmods.com/starfield/m...
Weapons of Fate (Ballistics Overhaul)
PC: www.nexusmods.com/starfield/m...
TG’s Buildable Player Homes
PC: www.nexusmods.com/starfield/m...
Music tracks used, in order: Starfield - Akila City, Starfield - Tenacity of Life, Starfield - Snowball, Starfield - Deep Freeze, Oblivion - Peace of Akatosh, Skyrim - Ancient Stones
The game at 2:01 is Minecraft (with Complementary Reimagined shaders and the Distant Horizons mod), at 2:39 is Grand Theft Auto 5 (I doubt anyone needed help noticing that), at 10:48 is Star Wars: Jedi Knight - Jedi Academy, and at 11:40 is Car & Driver (there are a few good MS-DOS games, this isn't one of them).
Timestamps:
0:00 Intro / doomed from the beginning
0:51 Starfield and the Bethesda formula
2:25 No team could have made this game good
3:20 Bethesda should have been realistic and dropped the 1000 planets
4:22 There's no excuse for Starfield's poor NPC scripting and bad UI
4:58 Lobotomized enemy AI
5:56 Long range combat is still bad / hitscan weapons
6:56 Picking up items = theft
7:43 Nothing to do in space
8:54 Starfield's economy is the same as every other Bethesda game
10:31 Survival mechanics shouldn't have been cut
11:15 The rapid pace Bethesda intended is undercut by some mechanics
11:45 I doubt we'll see land vehicles in the future
12:39 Outpost building, it's terrible
13:36 Books and bookshelves
14:05 Features missing from Daggerfall
14:37 8 wasted years
14:57 If only Bethesda hadn't chased the latest graphical trends
16:30 Outro
my pay-treon: / pancuronium

[@mattc7420]

Babe it's 4pm, time for another essay about Bethesda game quality.

[@ClonesDream]

Babe, wake up. Please, babe wake up. Please...

[@benm.724]

Just did it an hour ago...yeah your right. Time for a quiet rant.

[@jays2551]

yes dear

[@lobstrosity7163]

Please, just flatten my penis

[@markbunst5961]

This shit is so tiring. None of these chucklefucks actually understand anything about Bethesda games, and I wish they'd all just shut up

[@DreddPirateRoberts]

0:17 - *"...much of the terrible writing is a clear result of design shortcomings..."* Well, the lead designer and the lead writer are the same person: Emil Pagliarulo.

[@Vert_GreenHeart]

Gotta love that absolute moron...

[@woopygoman]

All great points. Imagine if Starfield had 10 carefully hand-crafted planets full of unique biomes and stories. Sigh...

[@anton6686]

I knew when todd started talking about over 1000 planets it was going be a disaster.

[@thornescapes7707]

The moment that I heard 1000 planets, I knew. It was inevitable. Admittedly, I was still hoping that they would listen to the community and that Creation Kit 2.0 would have fixed their horrible UX, but that didn't happen either. Starfield is still selling. People are still playing it. People are still making excuses. There is so much potential in the Bethesda formula, but they do not listen and they do not learn.

[@MisterDevos]

Nice talking points buddy. Learn to think for yourself. Nothing they said about the planets before hand was false. They explained how empty and barren the planets would be(like in real life). You expected too much like most internet addicted idiots. The game is simply not for you.

[@peterd9698]

My machine couldn’t even run this, but I have been fascinated by the (possibly cursed) problem of combining unlimited procedural worlds with a space RPG.. and then I became fascinated by the apparent lack of attention Bethesda paid to this, as evidenced by repeating locations without even basic procedural variation. IMO they must have been at least aware of that, and the removed fuel mechanics suggest to me that they did think about these problems but something went wrong in development and their goal reduced to just removing bugs even if that meant ripping out unpolished features thus leaving other features without any purpose.

[@heroicgangster9981]

@@MisterDevosDefending a company for not cooking good engaging ideas is what modern gaming is about lolol

[@stevenguitink5947]

Sunk Cost Fallacy for some I suspect.

[@boopuchannel]

this game will rot and fester until they finally release the creation kit. sad!

[@Nathan-no5nk]

I worry about TES6

[@imapotatoful]

all the biggest design issues that people have with Starfield are not going to be issues with Elder Scrolls since it is not going to be in space

[@99destroyer11]

delusional @@imapotatoful

[@rickywalter6707]

@@imapotatoful You're so sure about that? How do you know? I would really like to know how you came to that conclusion. Because I am excited for The Elder Scrolls 6 but Bethesda really needs to get their act together.

[@ype8921]

I do too, but at least TES has an interesting world and setting to build upon. If Bethesda focuses on their strengths (exploration, handcrafted open world, addicting gameplay loop, good music) and releases a polished product for a change with no rushed questlines there is some hope. The writing in these games is always going to be mediocre at best, Fallout and Elder Scrolls games are carried by their setting and atmosphere. If you take that away you get a turd like starfield.

[@mattc7420]

Are your complaints procedurally generated too?

[@TheBHAitken]

Do you want to know what happened? Simple, eight years ago Todd had a roundabout idea to do a series in space. The idea got tossed, pieces put together and tossed away, it restarted a couple of times and was tossed around with a "What are we going to do?" as they tried to come up with the next thing. Instead the 'next thing' walked by their front door looking for guaranteed titles for Game Pass. I am of course talking about Microsoft and this is where the human element comes into play. Bethesda has been going on for many years and they have always been independent. Even with their corporate structure all of it was internally made. So after 20+ years of running the business the executives and senior management had a serious problem: none of them could retire without seriously tanking the stock price. In this regard Microsoft offered everyone at Bethesda an easy out. You see, you cannot retire from your own company without seriously tanking your own stock, but if Bethesda stock is exchanged for Microsoft stock and the company is absorbed, the stock price will not be affected if an employee from a game division retires. So Fallout 76 was shined up as a constant revenue generator, and the sparkling prize of Starfield for Game pass was sold. It didn't matter that there wasn't a core game yet, they had their cash-out option and they wern't going to miss it. So that is what we got. The "Minimal Contractual Obligation" of a collection of systems barely holding together but enough to be legally called a game, and one week after publication the senior management in Bethesda cashed out their stock options and headed for the door. With less than a handful of the senior staff left it is safe to say Bethesda is no more, just a small IP collection and a bunch of junior programmers. Todd Howard is no longer a CEO but just a Microsoft employee, and personally I hope they fire him. Imagine how long they had been waiting for a corporate buyout... Your frustration comes from the fact that you are looking at a finished product so broken you cannot figure out why they did it that way. I'm telling you that making a finished product was the last things on their minds, they just wanted it to look good until they got out of the door.

[@UnityAgainstJewishEvil]

I think you just nailed it. IMO Bethesda has always been on the lazy, creatively bankrupt side, but these past two “games” they’ve sh•tted out really sunk to new levels of laziness.

[@DragonxFlutter]

So not only is it a shit copy of Star Citizen and The Outer Worlds, but it’s a rushed shit copy used as a cover for all the senior staff to finally retire. Honestly, that’s worse than just being bad.

[@Blackfatrat]

Betheda nor zenimax media were publicly traded prior to microsoft purchase.... this was not about stock price.

[@gustavosanches3454]

While some of this comment makes sense, I think its simply ignoring the fact that doing so is shooting themselves in the foot + simply ignoring the fact that no serious game developer ever wants to ship a shit/unremarkable product (76 and SF). Unless all of them are commited with going full on the scorched earth policy, this comment adds just more nuance to the whole story, it isnt an explanation of why 76 was outrageously bad or Starfield was just unremarkable slop.

[@Blackfatrat]

@@gustavosanches3454 His comment makes zero sense. Bethesda didn't care about it's stock price. They weren't publicly traded. They didn't have a normal stock price. And now Microsoft won't take the retirement of some old man on the board into account when buying IPS like the Elder scrolls, Fallout, Doom, Wolfenstein and so many more.

[@laurihakala8600]

Modern Bethesda does not seem to plan much. The amount of mods I have that just fix or make the game better with small tweaks in Fallout 4 is stupid. I want to mod the game to upgrade it, not fix it. Not enthusiastic about Fallout 5 or Elder Scrolls 6.

[@gulskjegglive]

Excellent point. Modders can only refine an already fleshed-out game. Starfield is little more than a tech demo, so there is not enough meat on the bone to make a proper meal.

[@Pigness7]

@@gulskjegglivehow is 100+ hours not enough flesh on the bones?

[@kaizenregimen]

​@@Pigness7quantity over quality, probably the main problem with modern Bethesda games apart from the writing

[@Xalantor]

@@Pigness7 You must think of Ubisoft games as gods gift to gaming. Wow, so many hours spend in busy work. How fun.

[@molagdagon]

We're screwed for TES VI

[@Gutvald]

There will still be large pack of brainless "DAY ONE" buyers.

[@Isengardtom]

@@Gutvaldyeah unfortunately I won’t be one of them. Not going to be fooled twice

[@DragonxFlutter]

I didn’t even buy Skyrim or FO4 until there was a massive Steam Sale. Glad I waited. Skyrim is so mediocre that it only lived as long as it has thanks to mods, and FO4 is a poor man’s copy of NV. Starfield was a new IP, with the only real expectation being “it’s a BGS game”. TES6 has heavier expectations, and is 100%BGS’s last chance to get their shit together.

[@BoleDaPole]

It's rarely worth buying a game day 1 these days when you could just wait another year or two for all the bug fixes and gameplay updates release alongside the " GOTY" edition packed with all the DLC.

[@Gutvald]

And the price reduced to 70 80% with keysalers.@@BoleDaPole

[@MinaxSkate]

dev cycles arent even dev cycles anymore. theyre just periods of time to allow the fanbase to get hyped for a game - so that the company can guarantee better gains on release.

[@KakashisDirtyBook]

The thing I love about these videos is that you know enough about game design and production to point out what the rest of us just kinda feel or understand by instinct. Having someone explain what is going on in bethesda'a games like a bored teacher pointing out all the flaws in a student's half assed project is something I didn't know I needed but am delighted I got.

[@IPEsometimes]

That’s a really good way to put it, lol

[@saltywater5097]

The Pervy Sage himself couldn't have said it better.

[@Gyrfalcon312]

Echoing my thoughts! This is why I want to learn FO4Edit and similar programs, learn how games truly work.

[@cockyrustler]

They should have made only ONE planet, with Skyrim/Fallout 4 size explorable zone, dense with classic Bethesda exploration content. In space, you'd be able to explore derelict ships, outposts and encounters, with more immersive flight simulation ( using "warp" as cleverly concealed loading screen). Other planets should be just like in Mass Effect.

[@Vert_GreenHeart]

Why would you have one planet when you can have A THOUSAND ?! - Todd probably...

[@cgtrout]

I think having one or two handcrafted landing zones per planet would of been a good compromise (not allowing the player to land 'anywhere'. The game tries to provide the illusion that you can land anywhere on any planet, but very quickly shows the player it is nothing but an illusion.

[@chuexsy672]

That is a great idea… only that would result in Bethesda actually caring about developing a good game again and I don’t see that happening.

[@Tinylittledansonman]

They dont even have to do that though. They should have just had actual side quests attached to unique areas lol. Its main problem is all POIs are copypastes with nothing going on. Planet varieties really one of the only things holding the game together. Where they failed was dungeon variety. Also where would you be flying with just one planet?

[@urktheturtle2988]

one isnt enough for space exploration, but 3-5 with maybe a few small planets that are just dungeons, would ahve been more than enough for any human being.

[@ClayAsbury122]

An RPG where compliance with authority is the goal. How very current year. Peak ESG.

[@160rpm]

It felt like joining the army...no fun, no sexy, but all chores and drabness

[@matthewmosier8439]

And people wonder why it flopped. You know the phrase.. "something something woke and broke"

[@razorback0z]

Well said. So true.

[@watchout5508]

Simply put, Starfield was outdated 20 years ago....

[@deselar]

My biggest disappointment was the ships. I was hoping that we could build a ship that we could live in and decorate the interior. Display all of my unique items, weapons, and armor. Also only having a unlimited stash in the lodge kept me from wanting to live anywhere else. I don't want to haul all of my crap to an outpost or player home so I could build. I built only two basic outposts before I was done with that.

[@160rpm]

Those storage containers at the outposts were so ridiculously small that you'd need a mountain of them to not be a problem. Makes you feel like they don't want you to have fun with the outposts lol

[@UmVtCg]

Exactly what I wanted, to walk around and live in your spaceship. You know, take a virtual crap on a customized toilet while a planet peacefully rotates beneath the window.

[@BitchspotBlog]

@@160rpm The outpost building is terrible. You're stuck with these ugly hab modules no matter where you build. They are just generic pieces that you stick together in pre-determined ways. I want to be able to build my base from scratch like you could do in Fallout 4, like you can do in No Man's Sky. What we got was just terrible.

[@160rpm]

@@BitchspotBlog Yeah, hard to understand how they could end up making it even worse than previous games

[@Xalantor]

Ships as movable player houses are such a great idea but very few do them at all and most suck at the execution. They don't even need combat or any other mechanics. Just let me fly a my god damn dwemer airship house around Tamriel. Basic decoration is a must, but even if you cannot individually place furniture, how hard is it to offer like 5 different presets (maybe even faction presets) where you can even just customize set slots with different items.

[@YourCRTube]

You are missing the secret ingredient that got us here - Tod's ego. I GUARANTEE you, he is surrounded by people too afraid to say `no`.

[@planescaped]

Wasn't he saying that he was retiring after Starfield in the prerelease scrum? Funny how all talk of that has mysteriously died off...

[@lobstrosity7163]

Those who dared win against him in the chess club were never found again.

[@mikeryan1043]

​@@planescapedNo. He said TES6 will probably the last one (TES that is) he makes. But the statement gets confused a lot.

[@danramirez8553]

Yeah a game on the size of mass effect where the world seemed massive because of logs and written lore. But exploring the planets wasn't something you could necessarily do The only areas you could go were condensed hand crafted small areas built around the gameplay

[@UncleDon226]

The moment I heard about all the planets you could visit, I knew how it would turn out. Having a thousand planets to visit isnt a flex, it's a red flag.

[@patriot639]

The shopkeeper system is something I almost always want in any game that has you looting everything.

[@512TheWolf512]

yeah. it's two main bosses are Todd "don't make it work, cut it" Howard and Emil "ignore the reviews" Pagliarulo after all.

[@nohero1339]

Bethesda said no npcs for Fallout 76 and I was like nope Then they said over 1000 planets randomly generated I was like nope Wtf Bethesda why you do this

[@diodoxystar]

Finally a video on my feed I can watch, Good stuff

[@cole8834]

procgen could have helped them TREMENDOUSLY to give their worlds a sense of massive scale; imagine said 10 planets, but with massive explorable areas made possible w/ procgen; then, Bethesda could go in and fine-tune each (massive) world. Instead, they thought procgen was an end in and of itself. Also; land vehicles, OBVIOUSLY.

[@googlewolly]

Excellent video. You make some great, logical points. Hope to see more videos and that subscriber count rise.

[@GrannyPlaysGames-dm4hq]

Let's see, shall I play Starfield and use 50% of my time fumbling about with my inventory, or shall I go build an amazingly beautiful, creative kaleidoscope, do barrel rolls, and explore the oceans in No Man's Sky. Yes, Tod does remind me of some Amway folks I used to know. XD.

[@SpectorEuro4]

Bethesda is literally the Amway of gaming.

[@JMRabil675]

NMS is a Dr. Seuss simulator lets be real. Its still better than SF tho

[@GothicXlightning]

You brought all the details and even all the 16x the other details when it comes the most important critiques sir Howard would be proud

[@flyingsquid6062]

The moment they said 1k planets it was doomed. They should have gone with 20 planets max

[@benmak1039]

No aliens is a big factor too in a space game with scope like this

[@cinnamon-skateboarding5987]

some of the concept art for starfield shows truly beautiful and alien worlds, whereas the final product is all goofy looking earth bugs. i know aliens and worlds aren't the same thing, but can you imagine how much it would've elevated the current alien biology if the areas were even more otherworldly? biomes that truly couldn't exist on earth, nature that doesn't look like cheap dinosaur VFX.

[@heroicgangster9981]

Starfield just feels like a game for people that haven’t played an open world game before, all size no substance or even fun sci-fi in a space rpg game. I just think Starfield was not made to be an engaging universe, it feels more like an experiment to test how people would like a bethesda game where the content is not handmade. Bethesda showed that they would make an empty Fallout game without even any npcs if they could get away with it like with 76. Wastelanders would not be made if 76 was an unabashed success.

[@darkshamrock5763]

The ui mod is a lifesaver. I imagine they’ll try to add it in the creation club once released.

[@editorrbr2107]

I’ve rarely been so happy to cancel a pre-order

[@chavezchavo]

Bethesda's ethos: If the game looks good, it's already good.

[@conandrake444]

The save bloat is again present which is for me a real joke, what's the point to make huge games if it starts to crash around 100h of vanilla gameplay ? If they don't fix this issue, modding the game will be painful ^^

[@Mirthful_Midori]

I've heard that modding is already going to be exceedingly difficult, if not impossible for anything big. Apparently Bethesda changed something with how files work to facilitate the procedurally generated "planets". It seems that had the side effect of making things a lot more difficult for anyone wanting to mod it.

[@universome511]

this is the best starfield commentary ive seen

[@patwilson2546]

You nailed it. Starfield keeps everything that is bad about Bethesda games while somehow eliminating everything that makes me love Bethesda games. And, until Starfield, I did love them.

[@PuppetMasterdaath144]

You did a good thing for the community of gamers

[@user-xb8vb6sd9j]

This studio will NOT make a good TES6. It's over.

[@gustavosanches3454]

"In fact, much of the terrible writing is the clear result of design shortcomings" EXACTLY! A lot of these "Bethesda writting" moments arent just because of the writing itself, but rather because the game presented it in an awful way to the players. Even when the writing is on-point, you'll have it delivered to you in the most boring, bland, weird way possible, and then meet a stupid choice that bears no consequences to the overall plot or gameplay. I think the best case for this is that video that compares two scenes in Cyberpunk 2077 and Starfield that are essentially the exact same scene, except Cyberpunk's is awesome while the Starfield one is downright horrible.

[@PancuroniumB]

I've never played Cyberpunk 2077 but I watched that comparison. Yeah, if the animations and background music in Cyberpunk were downgraded to Starfield's level, the scenes would be on much more even footing. Even the greatest dialog could be ruined if the animation team or voice actors or quest scripters drop the ball, and fail to present it properly.

[@UnityAgainstJewishEvil]

@@PancuroniumB You haven’t played Cyberpunk? Do yourself a favor, stop torturing yourself with this lazy Bethesda trash, and play Cyberpunk. Hell, I enjoyed it even at launch on pc because there was great stuff underneath the jank, but now that they’ve addressed the issues, it’s pretty close to perfect. The main game is fantastic, but the Phantom Liberty dlc is even better, a flawless execution of immersive storytelling. Plus it’s an actual rpg with choices that matter, which Bethesda games can only pretend they are. Play it my friend, it’s great.

[@PancuroniumB]

@@UnityAgainstJewishEvil It was hard enough forcing myself to launch Starfield when I have Red Dead Redemption 2 in my library... I don't think I need any more temptation right now.

[@UnityAgainstJewishEvil]

@@PancuroniumB Haha, RDR2 and Cyberpunk are literally the only games I’ve played in the last few years, (well Dusk too, for a fps fix).

[@Ronuk1996]

​@PancuroniumB Horzion Zero dawn had massive issues with this Plus the Dialogue was not great to begin with.

[@DragonxFlutter]

Starfield looks like BGS scoped out what Star Citizen is doing and tried to use that idea to one-up Obsidian’s The Outer Worlds, and ended up failing on both counts.

[@MontySaurusRex_]

It's sad that Starfield made me want to go back to playing Star Citizen the arguably worse game.

[@DragonxFlutter]

@@MontySaurusRex_ At this point, Star Citizen looks better no matter how you slice it. They're not rushing Star Citizen like BGS did with Starfield.

[@MontySaurusRex_]

@@DragonxFlutter I mean at least Starfield has functioning NPCs and content to playthrough. Star citizen still won't have that for another several years.

[@DragonxFlutter]

@@MontySaurusRex_ SC is primarily player driven. Like Eve but you can get out an walk.

[@MontySaurusRex_]

@@DragonxFlutter I play it all the time flying around salvaging abandoned ships around Microtech in my vulture. I know exactly what it is. Eve has a real economy that actually works with being player driven, things are made and sold in that game. Star citizen is still years from being even close to that. Star Citizen is still years away from being a good RPG, a good simulation (like Eve), it's still years away from being a fully fledged game. We'll be lucky to see everything they promise in 3.23 this year. Forget about pyro and server meshing. The RL tests are still insanely buggy.

[@ArminBlackFeather]

OMG i was so excited for this game and now eeee idk what to think

[@N7NFSR]

I was just randomly exploring a empty rocky planet in starfield and then....the planet started shaking and loud explosions few times then it stopped. This was unexpected. If they could have random things like this more often then it can make exploring more interesting.

[@jasonbow1926]

There are even ways to use the proc gen to make interesting a new experiences. Each playthru / NG+ the universe could generate slightly differently, faction spread out differently, multi-location quests (hand crafted) would spawn across different planets, that hidden pirate faction is hiding somewhere else this universe, etc. Instead, they gave us the laziest implementation possible.

[@homefront1999]

I think a big issue is the fact that Bethesda does open world games. But weren't able to actually make an open world map for all the planets as that would've been an unbelievably huge undertaking. So instead of humans having explored all the galaxy. Have a setting where Humanity has gone from just Earth, and expanded across the galaxy. But then at some point, this cluster of solar systems were cut-off from the rest of the galaxy. Effectively collapsing the economy and sense of government. But this way the game could've been focused on 2-5 systems, with bigger and more detailed maps. Maybe helping reign the story in and actually give it a story. Maybe throw in faction systems. Like a government that is barely holding on and hoping to one day reconnect with Earth. New form governments and even some independent colonies. Maybe have the idea be that you are part of this program meant to investigate and find out how to connect back to Earth. In doing so you start unraveling what happened and the dark fate of the rest of the galaxy. Leading you to explore foreign planets, of only skulls and ruins of the former human empire. Maybe have the center stage be interaction between ships. Docking and boarding. Much more prefer a stronger story then wide open and barren planets that have no soul. It was reveal that in Mass Effect Andromeda. For 5+ Years of the game's 7+ Year development life. Was spent on making procedurally generated worlds. With the idea of having 30 explorable worlds. But they were never able to do it right. With results being these fairly empty baren planets. So they scrapped together what they could and made the dumpster fire that is Andromeda. I got to wonder. Would it have been like Starfield? Or would it have still been more enjoyable.

[@JJsiN84]

I gotta say, I really liked your inventory management idea. That would work well in other games as well as inventory management if it's strict really bogs down the playability. At least for me, some games I find myself jumping to the inventory every 10 minutes and at that point it becomes a chore.

[@CrniWuk]

I think if they actually really doubled down on the "Survival" aspect of what it could mean to be in space the 1000 planets and precedual generation could have actually worked. If it actually meant something to explore places for very valuable resources. Think about it. A game that would make space and exploring space actually dangerous. A place where you have to be on endge, where you had to manage your resources carefully, making choices that matter and impact your game. The difficuilty could push a lot of people away. But it could also provide a level of authenticity that Bethesda tried to aim for with their "space exploration" and "NASA" Punk. Space is amazing. It is amazing because it's one of the most hostile environments. And no one ever has been there before. So if someone achieves to be the first human in space, or the moon or even mars one day, that would mean something. Starfield as a survival game that actually embraced those mechanics could have been awesome.

[@Senator-Wary]

Did you cover that massive institute weapon pack? Institute weapon overhaul

[@PancuroniumB]

I haven't, but maybe I will eventually.

[@Senator-Wary]

@PancuroniumB sweet hope you enjoy it

[@FlippedHands]

Found your channel from this video. Please keep up the great work!

[@Xalantor]

Well done, you basically took my thoughts and said them better than I ever could about Starfield. For the life of my I cannot comprehend how Bethesda keeps ignoring their strengths and player feedback to chase some useless and insanely time/money/resource intensive ideas which even if they work as intended are usually mid at best.

[@afz902k]

I think a game with the scope of Starfield would have to properly model post-scarcity, which the Bethesda model doesn't really adapt very well to.

[@arkosilaura]

Yup. They are all about fantasy and post-apocalypse games. Their ineptitude at writing and capturing the essence of a sci-fi universe is apparent, especially when you have to travel from planet to planet just to speak to somebody and you have superpowers straight from Skyrim.

[@cinnamon-skateboarding5987]

​@@arkosilaura I'm sick of writers that have no basis in sci-fi whatsoever making sci-fi stories.

[@thewewguy8t88]

Some of these ideas sound great for tes 6

[@Vert_GreenHeart]

yeah but when did Bethesda ever listen to fans ?

[@thebighectares]

The crazy thing is that Bethesda learnt that smaller hand crafted worlds work better 20+ years ago when they went from Daggerfall to Morrowind. It's like they go out of their way to avoid the things that have worked for them in the past.

[@balaam_7087]

I don’t ever think I’ve agreed with literally every single thing said in a critique video before in my entire life. Congratulations dude😅

[@ebrietasbiscuit]

This is one of the best takes I’ve heard- and I’ve watched a lot of Starfield videos. Well done good sir

[@austinbevis4266]

In a relatively concise video too

[@jasonszendel413]

The unfortunate thing in my eyes is Starfield and NMS both lack what the other does well

[@cinnamon-skateboarding5987]

i loved this video, i never knew previous Bethesda games were so immersive! detailed book models with page flipping? 3D dungeon map? i never knew those were things they did and it blows me away how much detail they put into those games. i agree with the graphics thing as well, imagine a bethesda game that took a note from bungie's playbook. games like destiny 1 had relatively low poly, low res assets but made up it's graphical shortcomings with a gorgeous artstyle and expertly crafted ambience and lighting. somehow, vanilla destiny 1 managed to be only 25gb total, and that included a full campaign, several handcrafted maps to explore and fully realized multiplayer.

[@keklord6074]

I can't believe that they still haven't bothered to fix that damn third person and first person walking speed, it is such a minor issue yet bethesda doesn't care, what the hell man.

[@Zripas]

To be fair, that walk speed issue hardly gets into top 50 issues they should have addressed

[@keklord6074]

@@Zripas True, but it is such a minor issue with a fucking simple fix. I experinced that issue in skyrim and in fo4 as well. And it still persists...

[@LabyrinthiaX]

I know a lot of people would disagree because of the tedious nature of this gameplay style, but I really wish Starfield was more of a hardcore survival "Death Stranding" in space, where the player is forced to consider the logistics of spaceflight and actually have to get intimate with it all, you'll need to plan your journeys beforehand to ensure you have the proper H3, food, and water to get to your destination safely. When you're in the deep parts of space you might find yourself low on supplies and you have to make the decision to land on a planet and raid an outpost, but in this version of Starfield the gameplay is much harder and AI is smarter, you'll find yourself outnumbered and you may have to bring all of your crew with you to raid these outposts just to feed yourselves. To reach the furthest depths of the settled systems, which is mostly unexplored, you'll need some kind of infrastructure like your own outposts which serve as Helium-3 depots, the reward for exploring this far is selling the science for exploring these planets as nobody has ever seen or touched them. Everything ties in together and all systems are important, the player feels rewarded for planning and executing said plans properly, as Todd Howard said "It's like flight in the 1940s, it's dangerous but everyone wants to do it" which would sell the idea of hard-scifi much better, humanity is still new to exploring space and it's plenty difficult. Perhaps the amount of habitable planets should be significantly decreased in regards to having a breathable atmosphere to really sell that humanity doesn't have much options on where they can settle, there's a few places where the player can experience earth-like nature and peace. I have modded Starfield to experiment with the older systems which they removed, I will say the experience of actually flying to a planet improves the gameplay drastically, it already reduces the amount of loading screens you have to go through. If they were smart, the only loading screens would have been entering interiors, landing on planets, and grav jumping (and grav jumping is a decently disguised loading screen already). They had everything they needed right in front of them, but they just couldn't see it or perhaps were too worried people wouldn't like the dangers of spaceflight, so what we got instead is a game where you have unlimited fuel and are pretty much a solo space god soldier who can kill anyone and can fast travel everywhere. The story is a whole other ballpark, I think it should be darker and show the corrupt side of humanity, the current story feels too PG-13 and sterile.

[@vnelson000]

Great critique 👍🏾

[@davidkhan1626]

Hey Pan, can you do a fallout 4 Xbox mod’s review, your very detailed and helpful!

[@paulgilson2347]

Over 400 hrs played but everything you've said is right. It's soulless and now when I jump on, I'm bored in half an hour. Most of my time in FO4 and 76 was spent building bases but even that sucks here.

[@tomaka121]

I gotta replay Fallout New Vegas soon...

[@UnityAgainstJewishEvil]

Bethesda are still bitter over Obsidian outshining everything they’ve ever made while being kneecapped in practically every manner possible. It really drives home how incompetent and lazy Bethesda is.

[@glowinTHX]

That is obsidian buddy. Most obsidian games are good

[@Jump-n-smash]

Best decision I ever did was abandoning fo4 and try FONV.

[@UntilChill]

Hey! Most of space is empty so it's realism! You're having fun!😂

[@Vert_GreenHeart]

Interesting fresh take on this video, lots of good points but for me this is the first time i heard somebody mentioned "Precombined", most people don't know how optimization work but they should.

[@stevenguitink5947]

Personally, I think part of the problem with the Bethesda formula is that people just never noticed or gave a shit. Bethesda gave people a very particular type of game experience, regardless of the jank. I've heard people refer to Starfield as cozy and I would hazard a guess and say that people could aim the same thing at other Bethesda titles. They're games that bare no real consequences to your actions so you make your own cozy fun. But so many games have come out since that have expanded and improved on what Bethesda do and have done. In addition, this is current Bethesda's first original IP. The Elder Scrolls was based off the founder's original DnD setting and Fallout was an IP bought from Interplay. They've had inbuilt worlds to work from instead of working from scratch. And given the design/writing team's impetus is on players having 'fun' over creating a coherent, reactive world you can have fun in, their games have always more or less been theme parks with RPG trappings. And now Starfield comes out and IMO it's Bethesda at their most honest, with all the glamour of old IPs stripped away. All of their janky, underperforming mechanics on full display without the charm of an existing IP to back them up. Now people are noticing. Now they give a shit. And they feel betrayed. They feel stupid for buying into the hype.

[@Hajo87-tz7hz]

They should have taken an approach like in ME Andromeda or The Outer Worlds.

[@saltywater5097]

The graphics to gameplay ratio peaked over 10 years ago if you ask me. Now it seems graphics get better but gameplay either stagnates or gets worse.

[@boobalooba5786]

If AAA studios just went back to using 2008 era graphics the industry would improve a thousand fold immediately. It would allow believable enough worlds that don't take decades to make and would allow developers to focus on the aspects of game development that make the most impact, the gameplay systems and content.

[@dark_drakon6814]

@@boobalooba5786 Disagree with you to a cut away point. Good 2015 Graphics Are easy to achieve In today times. The Witcher 3 is from 2015 And still looking Good or something to that effect Using a stylizing To enhance visual experience And adds atmosphere A lost art in AAA Studio. Example Using mods I use. I have super light graphic mods In F 4 and sk. Emb +mod We're good lights and shadows Optimized texture. Like a mod in sk or f4 Big Objects to 2K medium Objects 1K Small object 512 Weapons 2k And some of the mods look better Compare even to +4k A reasonable Polygon count + good body skeleton. . Take for effect Water f4 One mods (Improve water objects ) Plus, two Vanilla bug fix. Small Size ground texture mod and better lighting. This water look better Compared to Starfield Using water vanilla texture of f4 . Fallout 4. Have performance issue. Not because quality of graphics Because of a lack of any optimization And some stupid decisions. Loading new Objects For example Enter into a building. Isn't immediate action. First opening doors Animation Must be completed Before beginning of Loading Objects On average This one Cost you 1-3 Extra second of Waiting. This isn't necessary To function of f4 Because they are mod to fix this. adding cooperating Tasks Execution Instead of 1 by 1 In this situation . And not you cannot counsel Process of entering the building After beginning anyway .

[@sparkzmentalz2]

Photo mode and the ship builder are Starfield's best features. Everything else is pure ass crack.

[@daniellittle3249]

this guy needs more subs

[@RandomWandrer]

I hope Shattered Space will be a hand crafted invironment. Imagine if every DLC was a hand crafted place like Fallout3 with its own interesting story

[@austinbevis4266]

I really hope

[@JackdotC]

Let's be honest shattered space is base game content they pulled out of the game to sell as dlc. So it's going to be more of the same most likely

[@austinbevis4266]

@@JackdotC that’s true

[@dwestman62]

Plot twist. We already played "shattered space". It's called Starfield. Space doesn't get more shattered than that.

[@stevencacka1799]

Now there’s 1100 planets! Yes 👍 😅

[@billy_cross5580]

Yeah, I know man sky the outpost building is incredible. Plus you can actually go and find and capture and repair freighter and build an outpost on Fraser as well or whatever you want actually on a freighter and then you can fly set Fater around.

[@El-Duderino-His-Dudeness]

All they had to do to make space travel more seamless was go the Freelancer route. Which uses gateways, much like the ones in Cowboy Bebop. Just have big ass warp points with fast tunnels. Then you could also have missions that revolve around that. Ship to ship encounters that happen in them. Races, anything you want. Hell, they could put in little space stations at either end that manage the damn things and maybe you could shut them down to do robberies. Literally anything.

[@adamndirtyape]

My advice is to wait years until Starfield is on sale at a deep discount...then ignore it anyway because screw Bethesda.

[@heroicgangster9981]

just don’t buy the game honestly, i don’t wanna get games that think it can trick me with size and vague fantasies of exploring space as enjoyment

[@Xalantor]

I waited for Fallout 4 until I just recently got it for 5 bucks. It's fun enough, but I will probably never buy Starfield. Better spend that 5 bucks on some indie title like "Dread Delusion" 80s graphics, but the spirit of Morrowind.

[@vast634]

Funnily: Mass Effect Andromeda tried exactly this - huge procedurally generated planet surfaces - in early development, until they had to give up, and used classic handcrafted maps. The whole procedural generation at that scale belongs to sandbox games or requires a quality level as in Star Citizen AND it naturally requires ships to fly around.

[@thewewguy8t88]

honestly there is only one thing that annoys me in skyrim and that is the dragons spawning anywhere and killing npcs in towns lol.

[@VoidmasterCZ]

Don't loot the dragon tablet in bleak falls barrows. Looting that tablet off of that draugr and delivering it to whiterun enables dragon spawns. You can't drop it either so don't even loot it (it's heavy). Once I figured that out I was almost never doing main quests untill I deemed ready to do them. If you are playing a melee build which is almost like half of skyrim possible builds you need that dragon shout to ground a dragon. This forces you to rush main quest line. Other way to avoid dragon fighting is to avoid them all together by not looting that dragon tablet.

[@mikfhan]

And if you have SKSE access, then mods like "Skyrim Unbound Reborn" and "Run for your Lives" can help as well to delay random dragon attacks and make NPCs hide in their homes.

[@matthewrichardson2533]

Im having fun but I heard about the bad main questline so I just started doing the faction quests right away

[@cyberpunkdarren]

Brilliant sir

[@vooshoos]

good video subd

[@MrBenAttenborough]

Lack of sentient aliens (afaik) was a real bummer. It's a space sci-fi without the magic

[@thomaspaine7098]

“We wanted to make it realistic” proceeds to add multiversal super powered beings

[@FuriousMaximum]

Here's a plus, Starfield drove interest back again to Fallout 4, New Vegas and, No Man's Sky.

[@Shamman_komanch]

What was the name of that total conversion mod for New Vegas that had cars and tanks? Those buggys felt pretty good to drive. The suspension even reacted to the terrain.

[@PancuroniumB]

The Frontier.

[@Shamman_komanch]

@@PancuroniumB That's the one. Technically it was a marvel. The rest quite forgettable.

[@iDaVisionEnt]

Okay when they showed gameplay footage I clearly remember seeing loading screens and that actually made me think to wait on this game, glad I did. If a game like no man sky can hide loading screen and red dead redemption 2 can Star field has no reason to have them

[@kedarjani2346]

Lol 9 patreons comment got me. U sir have a subscriber nice video

[@HoboHunterRik]

I knew this game would have nothing for me story wise as most modern AAA games dont but i was so sore in the ass when space trucking (a literal origin you can choose) is absolutely no where to be seen. I literally just want to manipulate markets to make stonks like in those old flash caravan games

[@Vert_GreenHeart]

That's asking too much especially from Bethesda.

[@schalitz1]

My biggest question now after revisiting other Bethesda games, why does everyone only have shoulder length hair at most? Are people in their universes forced to get haircuts? Or is Bethesda to mediocre to animate longer hair? You decide.

[@sethkael9839]

I am pretty positive Starfield was intended to be another online game like Fo76 and was not designed for a single player experience.

[@kevinmeunier1770]

I played on xbox and for me it was the 30 fps and the controls or lack of control settings it was weird at best

[@NoMadKid]

I hope with updates this could grow and evolve. It has the potential to be a forever game By including: PvP Spaceship battle. My planet/colony creation mode. Mounting vehicles. New species. Star Wars battlefront like battle royal. Story arc DLCs.

[@r.k.5031]

Bro. They spent 8 years on this shit. There will be no growth. There will be no evolution. Only Todd, telling you the real problem is your peasant hardware.

[@Amig186]

I suppose this is insignificant compared to the plethora of issues Starfield has, but I don't get why they still can't make the player smaller when crouched. It annoyed me in F3 and NV, I thought F4 would have it, but nope. When I saw Starfield had ledge climbing, I was sure it would be there, but still nope. Freaking Quake 2 let you walk under things when crouched, but Starfield can't? Why?

[@J.B.1982]

Level design?? That’s another thing for them to account for. Laziness.

[@browland1]

While I enjoyed Starfield overall, I definitely agree with many of your points. I think the biggest flaw is that Bethesda focused on making the game bigger instead of better, which leads to a "quantity over quality" feeling with the world, quests and plot. Having hundreds of planets to explore means nothing when said planets are mostly empty. During my entire playtime, I couldn't help but think of The Outer Worlds and how that game handled the spacefaring RPG so much better.

[@AC-hj9tv]

Best review by an anesthesiologist

[@PanzerFist_T932]

Unrelated, but there was a free game I got from GOG called "Genesis Alpha One" that pretty much feels a bit like Starfield; random gen bland planets that you go to mine resources, loading screens, ship building, space that feels boring and clunky, bad ai I guess the only upside is aliens and alien infestations onboard your ship when you collect resources... at least they have that i guess. There was also hijacking/raiding from other space folk, or doing the same to other ships, research captured aliens (yes you can catch them) and cloning (only way to get more crew members) Fact of the matter is that largely the same game was made by an even smaller team, with asset flipping ofc

[@gunhojput]

Thanks pancuronium great vid, now most my friends belive me when i tell them this game is carp!

[@ShaneShrimp]

15:30 extensively modding fallout and making nexus collections as i watch this made me shiver when you said precombine... excellent video

[@tinmen5943]

Are you secretly a modder

[@xXDeiviDXx]

Anyone who mods Bethesda's games tends to learn facts about how they work

[@tinmen5943]

@@xXDeiviDXx yeah true

[@worlds3061]

The second he mentiond "precombines" I knew he probably sunk hundreds of hours modding Fallout 4 alone.

[@kaizenregimen]

​​@@worlds3061I mean he's a mod reviewer

[@RumCzar]

Preach!

[@YorkGod1]

I'll restart playing this game when certain mods are released to make the game I want! So many restrictions to play Starfield vanilla!!!

[@Barefeet200]

Spent over 500 hours in game, left three weeks ago and started Cyberpunk....................now I think to myself, how did I ever play that pig of a game for so long. It will take years to make Starfield fun to play, or maybe that is just not possible at all now.

[@MisterZimbabwe]

This was what Todd said was his magnum opus? Time to retire because jesus christ.

[@AnonymousAnonposter]

Todd has always been a small, mediocre man, it's just taken a long time for some people to realize that.

[@benjbk]

- have a limited number of core star systems with handcrafted content and environments. These can include some empty stone planets where players only go to to reenact the Apollo missions, no problem. - have real space travel to communicate the size of the game world (and stuff to do in space) - have a procedurally generated "outer rim" type region, that is basically unexplored and filled with radiant and exploration quests and stuff. This region should be truly optional and would be there for the type of player that really needs a lot of planets to feel the vastness of space. Would this region need a thousand planets, though? Idk, probably not. They could have had their cake and eat it, too, imo.

[@OrangeNash]

Good ideas! It's a shame Bethesda are totally rejecting the constructive criticism they are gettiing for Starfield. They should be employing people with ideas like yours, to design their games! It is despairing that there are so many great ideas on how Starfield could have been transformed, yet a noisy minority dismisses any criticism as being just "haters". I think they game shouldn't be so open from the start. That your initial ship should have a very limited range and one of the aims of the game should be to progress to getting further range. Most people need a sense of progression to keep playing a game. That would fit with your idea of having the proc get worlds at the outer edge of the galaxy. You wouldn't even encounter most of them until many hours into the game. Initially, it would be a handful of hand crafted systems, getting more and more proc genned as you progress.

[@DE-GEN-ART]

there was an interview i saw with one of the ex developers from starfeild and alot of other bethesda games. he said the closed off nature of the creation engine is why there are so many oversights in the games, they exhuast so many man hours trouble shooting, instad of using an open source game ingine like unity that has an active comunity that is constantly inovating and adding feature sets that bethsda has to build from the ground upin the creation engine

[@NBag-ni4ow]

Someone care to explain the near perfect scores when it launched?

[@Evil_gumby]

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