Starfield and Creation Engine 2: A Modder's Perspective

This video took me the entire day to make so… hope you guys like it.
00:00 Intro
01:11 My Final Score
01:45 “Mods are a crutch”
03:19 Why Creation Engine is important
09:25 My Vanilla Starfield “Review”
11:35 Comparisons to other Space Games
12:38 Starfield’s Future
14:06 Disclaimer: I Love No Man’s Sky
14:35 Demo of Skyrim Being Amazing
15:20 Final Thoughts and Outro
Mods Shown in the Skyrim portions:
Water for ENB: www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspeci...
Kittytail’s Lightsabers: www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspeci...
Jedi Survivor Dual Wield Moveset: www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspeci...
Elden Rim: www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspeci...
MCO: www.skyrim-guild.com/mods/attack

[@SarcasticDragonGaming]

Update: There’s a sequel video now: kzbin.info/www/bejne/sIucenWlp510hrs As you can probably tell from the video, my feelings on all this are pretty strong, so I know I sound a lot more standoffish than usual, but I want to make clear that I mean no disrespect to anyone, and my thoughts about the discourse around the game are not targeted at any specific person, and my point is not to discredit or disregard the games that I compare it to, and especially the communities that surround them, just that anyone who thinks that Starfield is going anywhere is mistaken.

[@TraktorTarzan]

Do you think the inconsistency of where they put the loading screens and the amount of em were a desperate attempt to make the game run well on lower end systems? I mean they had open world skyrim mod, several years ago, so i hope its not a game engine limit

[@SarcasticDragonGaming]

@@TraktorTarzan Well, one thing to bear in mind about Skyrim’s Open Cities mod is that there is a substantial difference in scale. Moving 5 tiny worldspaces with about 30 NPCs each into a bigger worldspace is already a gargantuan task, it’s doable, but it’s not a quick thing to do. Starfield is incomparably larger, and the fact that it seems to generate multiple new worldspaces for every planet (my best guess is that each new landing zone is a new worldspace independent of the others) you land on means it would need to be done procedurally, while the game is running. I wouldn’t rule anything out but it would be much more complicated than in Skyrim of FO4.

[@mpo48]

there's nothing wrong being standoffish towards the people that hate this game, you are allowed and should be angered them, we need more people who have strong opinions and standards that never change

[@ninjadejedi]

@@SarcasticDragonGamingI think we should change perspective, in ED and NMS travel between system is basically loading screen, and sublight traveling in the same system is basically an automated process. What modding can do is make the process streamline without having to go to menu. For open world, I think open up the planets is good enough. SF planet is actuality one map, but you have keep moving each tile for them to generate stuff to do -

[@CausticRKS]

I feel like a lot of people don't really understand the nature of how their engines load stuff. I don't know the really technical details, but these games will probably never be able to escape the interior/exterior loading of cells, and I think this has something to do with the way persistence is achieved, and other features of their games. What's really fascinating and curious to me is the procedural aspects they've implemented. I will say firstly, I HATE this for interior cells. It's a massive disappointment that running into a science facility on one planet, pretty much guarantees the layouts and items within them will be in the exact same spots, without fail. It's straight up annoying that they all seem to be referencing the same interior location. You couldn't just make multiple references?? That would help a little at least... However, on the surface? It's INCREDIBLE. Imagine being able to just create the planet, and the explorable locations largely take care of themselves. If they were able to better randomize layouts and items, it would be perfect. Truly endless. Either our community will figure something out, or we'll get another Starfield game where they finally figure out how to properly randomize locations.

[@deejnutz2068]

I look forward modders finally achieving the long desired promise that Star Citizen made over a decade ago that is still unfulfilled.

[@TraktorTarzan]

One thing that Starfeld really gives me a great hope for, with the new creation engine; are mods so we can have fleets, and a fully fletched warhammer 40k universe, with all the factions.

[@SarcasticDragonGaming]

Oh 40K content is among the first things you’ll see.

[@tellmeimstupid1855]

@@SarcasticDragonGamingI love to see some Dead Space mods. Ships, guns, and armors. Maybe even enemies

[@CrniWuk]

It will be probably years till you see something like that. While Bethesda games do see a lot of really good mods, this kind of of mods, are very often not completely developed or only relesed in a playable state after 2 or 3 years.

[@outsider427]

Appreciate you modders great things to come, excited 😊

[@SarcasticDragonGaming]

Very excited, I’m hoping to make much higher quality stuff this time around

[@JCdental]

When people say modding is a "crutch" they mean the devs have become complacent, they take as granted that the modders will add value to the game no matter what, which is definetily the most business strategy

[@derrickcarangian1650]

12:56 I think it's more that people are concerned that people's free labor is being used to help a giant company profit despite the vanilla experience. Many players have only experienced their games modless on consoles,so it's absolutely on Bethesda to improve access and directly support the modding community; they have the resources. It's an excellent point about how continuity for modders is a big factor in relying on the creation engine. But I think it's also on the industry to continue developing tools for the community as well. It's a testament to modders that create despite limitations. It would be great to hear more about the inherent limitations with creation engine like cell based loading.

[@ChitChat]

Dude idk if you realize how important this video is. I'm a network engineer so I'm tech savvy, but know nothing about game design. And I've been riddling away trying to find out why is Creation Engine so important and the best I got was "it's easy to mod" which doesn't sound like a good reason to hold onto an "old" engine at first glance. Your video is exactly what I've been searching for and what others should see to understand the importance of Creation Engine and why Bethesda chose this route. Really value your perspective.

[@SarcasticDragonGaming]

Thank you very much for the kind words, I’m glad you found it to be informative, that was certainly the goal and I’m glad the message is landing well!

[@ChitChat]

@@SarcasticDragonGaming Do you have any videos on modding Skyrim? I think it's time I finally jump in. Can't wait for the Starfield mod kit to release.

[@SarcasticDragonGaming]

@ChitChat I haven’t made any actual guides in a long time but I do make videos about new mods I find to be especially groundbreaking. I am in the middle of a bit of a reboot right now for both my channel and Discord server though so I absolutely could, I’ve been diving into animation a lot myself as it’s a very active area of the community, and have considered making an overview video of all the tools that exist for it now, though it would be more a user’s guide than an author’s guide for now as I’m still quite an amateur in the latter respect. My previous Skyrim video though does have a list of several utility mods that I find to be crucial in keeping the game under control with a heavy load order if you want to check that out.

[@ChitChat]

@@SarcasticDragonGaming I've been thinking about using these mods but not sure if it's a good idea. Not sure where to start. kzbin.info/www/bejne/b5bYZHeXodKioK8&si=XF_ahwOSdJ3SjGO1

[@Lizards_Lounge]

@@ChitChat Don't be scared man, it's pretty easy to work with, Creation kit makes it very easy.. I was born into a generation where only the biggest geeks had a PC. and grew up in the bush... I'm a labourer, have been my whole life (BY CHOICE)... thought of being couped up in an office surrounded by soft, city people and women's gossip all day, is depressing to me. I never found Skyrim hard to mod.. rarely really even need to look up "How to" videos.. (already tonnes out there) With your background you should NOT BE scared. GO FOR IT MAN !!! I have faith in you.. Network Engineering I find much harder than modding Bethesda.

[@vexflorez6220]

The engine is not a problem. The problem is that Bethesda does not know anymore how to properly use their engine. That can easily be seen with the changes done in Starfield, with icons being related to form ids, the esl changes, and many more things. You are right that the creation engine is what keeps the bethesda games alive, but they have lost contact with the mod creators and does not listen to actual feedback about what has to be changed to make the creation engine more mod friendly. These things include stuff like overrides being on a line by line basis, and not the full record.

[@M4gicMark]

I’m glad someone with experience and knowledge about modding and these games is saying this. The creation engine should stay for all Bethesda games, I believe so wholeheartedly. Also I can’t wait for you mod releases (if you haven’t made any already) for Starfield

[@adhirajb]

Honestly a great video, I'm not a modder, but I do know about game engines, and people talking about CE2 without knowing shit about it really infuriates me. So thank you for this video! Subbed!

[@KevinGross-yr8fu]

They Always Talk about UE... Bethesdas Games are way to big and have to much stuff to create and letting it Mod with UE Mostly UE dont give the modders the Chance to create Something New

[@ninjadejedi]

Basically, Creating Engine turn these game into a collective creation of love and care from the mass compare to other games. Which allow for the longevity of the game.

[@valentinvas6454]

Yeah I get that, but how much longer can this engine survive honestly? The amount of loading screens in Starfield is infuriating. Especially in Neon. If they don't do something about it their games will end up more and more outdated and they are already lagging behind very badly. I would sacrifice some of the modding and being able to fill a room with cheese for a less clunky vanilla game anytime. Combat in Starfield can feel so freaking outdated at times especially against the aliens at close range. I can fire up Crysis Warhead or Dead Space from 2008 and even those feel more polished. I can't mod Cyberpunk nearly as well as Starfield but I don't care when the vanilla game has vastly superior graphics, melee, UI, mission design, actual vehicles etc. And you can go almost anywhere without a single loading screen and somehow it still runs much better than Starfield.

[@SarcasticDragonGaming]

I don’t think anyone is denying that CE needs work, but the assessment I’m making from this comment is that you, like a lot of people who watched this, are not a serious modder. If your response to not being able to extensively mod a single player game is “I don’t need to because it’s already good”, then you’re not a serious modder. When a serious modder is told that a good single player game can’t be extensively modded, they say “oh, well that’s a huge missed opportunity”, not “oh well, it doesn’t matter, because the game is already good.”, it always matters, and already being a good game does not in any way mean it wouldn’t benefit from modding. Maybe CE won’t be able to reach the same level of refinement as other engines, and if so, maybe it eventually won’t be able to pull in people who don’t care about modding, but my take is that it doesn’t need to, if Bethesda had CK ready at Starfield’s launch, there would’ve been so many mods, so fast, that within a year it would’ve been on Skyrim’s heels. It would already be effectively immortal on PC if Bethesda had just been ready. I said it in my follow up video but I’ll say it again, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with Bethesda selling a game AS a modding platform, and I think if they did that right it could absolutely be successful, even if the base experiences are “outdated”. But they haven’t done it right, instead it’s now mid-April and CK is still nowhere to be seen, and that to me is a FAR larger problem than any issue the engine has, and that’s what needs to be fixed before anything else. Bethesda is the problem, not CE.

[@Lost_in_the_Blink]

Great video man, I recently started my modding journey on Skyrim and I appreciate so much the work you and the community do. Keep going! Maybe one day I'll be able to run starfield and get some mods for it too!

[@vladsvirko1650]

Awesome video man, you`ve put your ideas perfectly, we need more videos like this from you.

[@lmpure_4542]

Happy to hear a passionate perspective on modding!

[@kardeon4503]

A big thank you to all the modders. Every day I am very grateful because you improve my gaming experience thanks to your hard work, skills and passion. Your positive and constructive role are essential for the gaming community in which lamentation, negativity, intolerance and denigration seem to be the new trend. So thank you once again and keep moving forward.

[@MeesterBumb]

Dude I love This video! Love and appreciate your thoughts. Your Style is awesome!

[@GTD_Galatea]

That was a very insightful video about how the Creation Engine works. You got a subscriber.

[@Creamybacontacos]

This was an awesome video!! I enjoyed hearing your perspective and opinion. And I couldn’t agree more with you I’ve been playing Bethesda games ever since I was little so I already know this game is going to stand the test of time. This game will only continue to get better for years on end because of the creation engine and it’s modding community.

[@taijeronv]

Great vid love the attitude. I've never seen your content before but it really sounds like you've invested a lot of time and effort to become a master of your craft. My biggest hope, which you confirmed, is that SF has legs and miles of road to cover. Thanks. Liked and Subbed.

[@bopbop076]

Im also a modder but on a small scope. While I mostly agree with you about Starfield and Bethesda games, I was noneless bafled about the no land vehicule and the lackluster space exploration, I really tho it would be at least a thing. The game is barely a 6/10 vanilla, it doesn't even have the sole Bethesda asset of other games aka a great open world design.

[@SarcasticDragonGaming]

Oh absolutely, my score might be partly influenced by the simple fact that it wasn’t a complete disaster this time, the longer I play it the more problems I have, I’ve already mostly burnt myself out, I’ve gone back to modding Skyrim mostly. I’m just waiting for CK now, but with it not coming for a few months, I’ve mostly stopped playing for now. The mods coming in are all very cool and will be important when the mod community really kicks off, but until then it’s not enough for me to want to play more.

[@larryiaquinta57]

I am a retired Senior Systems Analyst, but have no game development background. I have been feeling that most of what I see on other videos is from people who do not know what they are talking about, which is why I decided to check some modding videos. Thank you for an excellent video, that reenforced my suspisions.

[@sethblank3139]

Thank you sooooo much. Finally somebody to speak up for our community! Subbed, liked, and commented

[@jammaples]

Thank all you modders for your passion and generosity that allows folks like me to like a game, and then, with your talent, make it a game I love. The stuff y’all can do is just too cool.

[@dandyguandy]

This is eye opening. Thanks for sharing your perspective as a modder.

[@SarcasticDragonGaming]

Thank you for listening

[@vogonp4287]

Saying the Creation Engine is outdated because it shares some elements with Morrowind's engine is like saying that Source 2 is outdated because it shares code with Quake. Game engines are rarely written from scratch. Almost every modern engine shares code with older ones. Engines are hard to develop, and using what works is logical.

[@davegordon8602]

Thanks for the fresh perspective

[@philtrysstrongman]

I cant wait for you legends to get the creator tools cant wait to see what you all make for us

[@MauricioGonzalezFilms]

👏Yes! Thank you and thank you for modding!

[@whasian1487]

The modding community around Bethesda games is the best game modding community in the world. Modders have provided hundreds of hours of entertainment to my game play experience. Appreciate you all.

[@thisorscaff]

Glad to hear your perspective

[@fubarfubar1977]

I`m so glad to finally hear someone say this so, thank you. I really appreciate all the hard work modders such as yourself put into it. This was a really refreshing video to watch. You have totally nailed exactly why Creation Engine is SO important to these games and the community around them. Same way that people will say Creation Engine is nothing more than a modded Gambryo Engine. Fundamentally true but the differences are very substantial now. Thanks!

[@aidenlink2325]

starfield even a year from now will be wild.

[@Cmullet33]

The difference between Skyrim and Starfield at launch is that Skyrim when it launched was already an insanely fun game with massive replayability because it followed Bethesda's formula of creating an open-world exploration role-playing game with guided storylines and factions that weren't linear and was already a great game. The reason why Starfield is getting so many negative reviews is because it launched as a boring game filled with barren planets, no exploration, linear storylines and no replayability. Skryim was already an amazing game that with mods truly took it to a new level. It did not need mods to make it a game people wanted to play. Starfield is holding on to their modding community as life support to add life to the game.

[@Dekipoo]

Really cool perspective!

[@angryjoe98]

I really love your take on things.

[@Ragk5231]

I’m glad you made this video

[@toxicsneeze]

I agree with you 100%. Thanks for making this video...

[@androgynastronaut]

Seriously, this is the single most important video about Starfield that I've seen. I'm so impressed, I'm going to make a shoutout video directing people here. This gifted modder actually KNOWS what he's talking about. YOU have arrived...

[@SarcasticDragonGaming]

That isn’t necessary and I’m certainly not one of the more gifted ones, at least not yet, but thank you that’s very high praise.

[@androgynastronaut]

You're doing great in my opinion. 💫@@SarcasticDragonGaming

[@royrobsn]

So cool to hear that from you because, i was often thinking why they dont go to another engine, but i was modding the hell out of Skyrim and tought to myself if it would even be possible to mod that well on another engine.. And i realy like the Engine, the fact that things dont desapear you can drop something and find it later again is awsam.. Thank you vor that Video, now i know for sure a Engine flipp would be a verry bad thing..

[@robdonnelly4995]

Fantastic video mate, mod collections on Nexus has absolutely changed my life, Skyrim is now an immensely immersive survival fantasy dating simulator and Fallout 4 is a ruthless military survival shooter

[@MrRyanThaFitz]

Agree 100%, the best part of the Bethesda games is the creation kit! I remember making my own dark palace for my shadow knight with undead guarding it in Skyrim, build underground enclave labs in fallout 3, same thing in ES3. It lets the players take over and make the game theirs.

[@jeremylallemand9201]

Thank you for making is video, I am just a simple player and I still think it's a shame that they mostly rely on modders to fix their mess but I am really happy you guys are making the game the way we really want it. I can't wait for more immersive mods in starfield, I really hope to get rid of the overload of loading screens on day.

[@crzyces1693]

People don't care what engine Bethesda uses. They care about NPC's that have their cheeks go up and eyes squint a little bit when they smile so they don't look like creepy wax figures. They care about not having to deal with 7 loading screens to go from a room on planet to another planet (Leave room-leave building-board ship fly-destination-leave ship. Now Creation engine cannot do the smile thing. There simply are not enough points on the face to animate. The human face has 42 muscles. Baldur's Gate 3 has 84 vectors on the face which can move in various directions/combinations thereof. Cyberpunk 2077 has 42, with each being able to move in 6 directions, stopping at any point during animations. Now the second the engine can certainly do. These loading screens are idiotic. That's not the engine's fault though, it is poor game design choices. Why there aren't _hidden_ loading screens while the info streams in is just a *BAD* or, possibly lazy (yes lazy) decision by people higher up than the day to day employees. From artists to programmers, the majority have very little say in the final product when it comes to that type of thing. The UI is not a Creation engine problem. Again. Poor design choices. The maps? Poor design decisions. The crafting system? Do I even have to type it again? Almost every major issue with this game is an Executive issue. Could the Creation Engine be brought up to modern standards? Yep. It would cost about as much as a typical AAA game does to develop though. Just like building an engine from scratch is incredibly complex, heck, building plugs for engines that are already made is time consuming, but *_overhauling_* an engine costs a lot of money as well. A ton of legacy code needs to go. It has to. There are still traces of 32 bit instructions in this monster. Do I care if they switch engines? No. Do I want them to? No. Of course I am not a fan of CDPR switching to Unreal either. I like Red engine, and by gosh does it offer a ton of freedom. You can make your own pretty fricken realistic movie in that thing. I'm still confused about why they would switch. The only thing I can think of is the reason Bethesda is still using an engine in a state that Unreal was in 6 or 7 years ago. Say what you like about the amount of people playing Skyrim to this day, or any of the _modern_ Fallout games being because of modders, and though that may be partially true, it has very little to do with sales. You know, the metric by which companies base their actual success when microtransactions are not the main revenue driver. The way Bethesda designs their games, along with making a pretty powerful set of tools available to the community is the main reason so many people flock to their games. If the game was made in Creation, Dawn, Unreal, Unity, Red etc, I am pretty darn sure that the games would still have an exceptionally strong modding community as long as Bethesda released a set of tools to work on their game. Specific to the version of the engine they made the game with. Would switching make modding more difficult? Of course. Would people still _fix_ their games? Yes. Would it take longer? Obviously, because there would not be such a large library of things that work pretty much _"out of the box"_ anymore. At the same time, the overhaul required to bring Creation up to 2023 standards, or 2028 standards, around when I assume the next Elder Scrolls game will be out, would probably run them about $100M on the engine alone. It may be powerful and people might have 325GB Skyrim installs, but as we get closer and closer to photo-realistic games, something has to give. Bethesda isn't a _stylized_ art game company. They need to make a Red Engine overhaul. CDPR spent around 25M on the engine alone going from The Witcher 2 to the Witcher 3. TW2 cost about $25M to make. They spent around $90M for the Cyberpunk overhaul, saying it was more than half of their dev budget. That is a shitload of money. Then you look at companies like Unity and Epic and you see a huge workforce essentially working almost exclusively on their engines. Epic has 10K employees with 50% of their workforce working on making their current engine perfect with another 2500 working on the next iterations. Bethesda has what, 450 using Creation? Most of whom are actually working on the game? That's what makes what companies like CDPR with Red, or Crystal Dynamics with Dawn, or Larian with...whatever they use for BG3 so impressive. I'd be stunned if they had 50 people dedicated to just the engine design and upgrades. Unfortunately, that's probably what they need to do unless they do want to switch engines. Now that I have that off my chest, I don't think anyone means any offense when they say that Bethesda uses modders as a crutch. They do. Modders save Bethesda a ton of money. From giving them code they can grab for patches to paying pennies on the dollar (if anything) for actual asset improvements (or new assets altogether). It would be great if Bethesda released a game as full of content as BG3 and modders could just focus on assets or doing crazy shit to the game, and it is great that Bethesda helps out with that by releasing kits and allowing for much easier modding than most titles. Still, that isn't an excuse for the good ole _"That's good enough, modders will clean it up"_ attitude they seem to have. If the modding community was not here, does anyone think Starfield would be this barren? That the radiant quests would be so _bleh?_ It could be way worse; ei it could be Fallout 4. It could have been so, so much better to. Oh, and just like updating their engine, they need to upgrade their voice acting and writing. How do you get Adam Jensen to sound like a plank of wood? C'mon Bethesda. Yeah, the problems run a heck of a lot deeper than the Creation engine, though man, those smiles drive me nuts.

[@SarcasticDragonGaming]

Those are all mostly fair criticisms but yes, a lot of people absolutely do care what engine Bethesda uses and most of them care for the wrong reasons which is why I made this video. The problem with the word “crutch” is it implies that Bethesda focusing on modding is a bad thing. Though I admit at this stage that that part of my rant was probably more emotionally driven than anything else. I think I’d have been mostly fine with the state of the base game if they had put more effort into making sure the mod tools were ready on day one, but they didn’t, and I didn’t know they were gonna wait until “early” next year to release them until after this video came out, which I don’t find acceptable given the year long delay and lackluster state of the base product. We’re both unhappy with how they handled this, just in different ways.

[@armed_but_blind2768]

Nice points you have made, i think anyone who plays starfield for 5 minutes and knows anything about bethesda games can see the massive modding potential for the starfield universe

[@tincano-beans2114]

Sure but maybe 85% of the playerbase wanted a decent game, instead of a fun modder tool 😂.

[@czero1243]

people don't appreciate that tuning a game to how you like with mods is such an important need in a game especially for longevity

[@SarcasticDragonGaming]

Very much agreed.

[@xPhirozeN]

This vid needs more views man , liked and subscribed for support ! I agree with everything you said ! Also i would like to ask a question for you if i may since i recon you're a veteran modder :do you think it's possible to implement atmospheric travel ( for landing and take off) with mods ? I think this feature alone can change this game around.

[@SarcasticDragonGaming]

On a very limited scale I’m sure it will be possible as soon as CK2 comes out, I can’t imagine enabling ships to fly in a landing zone would be all that hard, but right now the landing zones themselves are quite small and wouldn’t allow for all that much travel with how fast the ships move, so that would need to be dealt with in some way too. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s somewhat possible a year or two from now but as of right this second there isn’t really a clear outline for how something like that would work, or what would need to be done to make it something you’d actually want to use. And thank you for the kind words!

[@Roonayy]

I don't agree with everything you're saying, but I love your passion and look forward to the mods that will come out for Starfield.

[@skyriminspace]

Mate, never heard of you before but this is like a rallying cry! I modded skyrim & FO4 as much as possible on PS4 but, not much was possible in either game aside from adding new locations & a few graphical tweaks. I switched to pc in preparation for starfield. I thought a game set in space should have some potential.... Understatement! Thanks for laying it out like that. You've stoked my (hype proof & very reasonable) expectations once more!

[@ashtondillard6906]

People complain so much about loading screens entering buildings but they don’t understand item permanence and how much of a toll it takes on performance… like the fact that you enter a room and every shelf, every drawer, every book case, every gun, every armor arent just props they are physical items with weight, physics, that can be moved and placed and will stay their indefinitely is a big thing in a game and is very taxing.

[@notthemusewere]

It is a bit of a “them” problem though, isn’t it? Don’t get me wrong; I love physics objects in a setting - Skyrim feels more real, and Andromeda felt less real for the same reason. But this “Sixteen times the detail!” didn’t leverage stuff that’s been known since Carmack to make complex-looking settings. Instead it is, as you say, individual physics props. With full textures. And every single one of them has to be loaded and re-loaded (and almost none of them have an in-game function other than to look cool). I don’t miss the lack of all that clutter in Mass Effect. What I miss is not getting shot in the face by a pirate while my game was stuttering. (SSD with 100 gigs of open space, 3050 with 12 gigs, maxed-out RAM…yeah, it is a throttling issue to the SSD, that’s what’s happening. The game is calling the drive too many times instead of caching in RAM, and the bus can’t handle it).

[@JeffreyBoles]

I'm one of the many people who have never made a mod but love using mods. I also get agitated when people say that mods are a crutch. No, mods are the point, for me. It's at least 50% of the reason why I've been so excited for Starfield and still am. I knew the modding community would die if BGS switched engines, but you really laid out exactly why that is. Great video, and thanks for being such a dedicated modder.

[@ZenJestr]

I think when people say Bethesda uses mods as a crutch, they mean that they intentionally don't include features or don't put much effort on existing features because they know the mod community will do that work for them for free. this is explicitly true. one of the Oblivion devs stated in an interview that the stealth gameplay wasn't as robust as they wanted/it could've been because they knew modders would take care of it. hell, Todd said they added a bunch of empty worlds in Starfield to serve as empty canvases for modders. now, I think the extent of how much Bethesda relies on modders is overblown but like you said, mods are the only reason why people give a shit about their decade old games.

[@user-wd1ct4bd8h]

THANK YOU!!

[@mdfm28]

The problem is Bethesda too focused making starfield as sandbox for modders but forget set aside the effort for making good story and end up scrapping features and content (like underwater content, shrines, Generic PoIs) including survival feature that made the fans excited in the first place. For me, The only way to fix starfield has to include is reworking the Lore and rewriting the main Story. If the future the game will be improved with mods, it will only can be accessed by PC players.

[@Francis-of8cw]

Thanks for the comprehensive and detailed information! Starfield is the first Bethesda game I am playing so I know nothing about modding capabilities for this game. I play on Xbox though...

[@SarcasticDragonGaming]

Thank you for listening, Xbox will get mods eventually.

[@ojdotts]

Very interesting vid and a fair take on Starfield's overall release, and on what CE2 really offers. You mentioned not being able to see the sun, are you using an AMD GPU card? I saw recent reports that those GPU users can't see the sun on any of Starfield's planets. One for next patch I'd imagine.

[@SarcasticDragonGaming]

I am actually, a 7900 XTX, it’s good to know that’s just a bug, thank you for pointing that out and thank you for the kind words!

[@SomeBaller]

Good video let's hope the creation kit comes through and what you guys put out there with it.... The potential for this game in terms of an actual space exploration game were massive, just fell below the mark I'm hoping modders can inject more stories into the game in terms of exploring new communities in diverse planets and biomes, explore with vehicles like you said and keep things less repetitive. Good luck!

[@Facepump]

hey man thanks for making these games better than great.

[@SarcasticDragonGaming]

Well I can’t take too much credit, my contributions overall have been pretty minor, hoping to change that this time around!

[@HeyPlayboi]

Hey SarcasticDragonGaming lol, I really enjoyed this video and subscribed! I have one question regarding the mods though :) would it possible to modify the procedural generation itself or do we have to wait for the availability of the modding tools to find out? It would be really cool to see some very unique topography and terrain! I try to really immerse myself within every game I play like I'm actually there but Starfield gives me a very emergent creepiness like the backrooms when I try to immerse myself, the terrain is the major factor for this!!!

[@SarcasticDragonGaming]

It’s hard to say at the moment but I wouldn’t say that anything is off the table, certainly not terrain modification, I’m sure biome packs will be some of the first things we see. Either way it will need to wait until Creation Kit is out.

[@HeyPlayboi]

@@SarcasticDragonGaming That’s a relief, it was my only negative, the only cool part about the terrain was when two biomes meet.

[@SarcasticDragonGaming]

Yeah, all of that will certainly get lots of attention as soon as the tools are available, very very exciting!

[@TheBorous]

Whilst I personally have not been able to enjoy starfield primarily for design reasons, (loading times, no atmospheric flight or vehicles) I was and still am positively suprised by how much of an upgrade the engine of this game has. People have slept on the sheer improvements in LODs, general draw distance and other rendering systems that it has, landscape geometry, lighting, shading, all of it is massively better than in Fallout 4 or 76. The stability in general is alsl uncannily good. That aside, great video! Really insightful and considered, I appreciate hearing stuff like this as opposed to the unthinking flurry of negativity the game has otherwise recieved

[@mattj2692]

Thank you for making this vid. I've been modding since Morrowind back in the day and while I love the mods and what the modders do. I've come to not be a fan of a large chunk of the community for what, to anyone who has a basic sort of tech know how, is very disingenuous and often times a flat out lie.

[@markscott684]

Glad I found this video. The modding potential on starfield looks great . Hope to see the planets with main cities on fleshed out more . Just more hand crafted content all round . Microsoft wants a repeat of Skyrim and Minecraft with this

[@markscott684]

Do a video on mod possibilities you see , the idea that creation engine can't do vehicles is everywhere. That outpost system is crying out for some proper rts tower defense mechanics and more . So many possibilities, good video series exploring some maybe

[@SarcasticDragonGaming]

@markscott684 I’ll look into maybe doing that, I don’t want to do too much speculation but what I will say is I don’t think mods will even be necessary for ground vehicles. I’m absolutely sure they’re possible, if ships are then ground vehicles are. I’m sure we’ll get lots of custom vehicles but my personal prediction is that ground vehicles will come to Vanilla Starfield with the first story expansion, similar to how we got horse mounted combat in Dawnguard. It’s hard for me to want to do too much speculation because when you look at Skyrim and FO4 it’s difficult to take anything off the table, just about anything could show up.

[@PREDATER587]

Genuinely the best starfield review

[@SkyMasters]

Good video

[@Sonofagunn.]

It’s so funny that those first 2 complaints he mentioned were the big adds in the newest update. Atleast they’re somewhat listening. The map looks nice and the promise of vehicles is cool. I want this game to be good

[@treymtz]

I kinda like this unfiltered biased perspective. But I can't deny that the criticisms "because the engine" comes from somewhere. Even if they don't know quite what they are talking about, it doesn't really matter since its not their job. Thankfully Creation Engine is still around rather than jumping the gun on abandoning it. But I do think it needs focused development based on criticisms that the engine isn't equipped to deal with rn for TES6. They should focus on things such as asset management to not have loading screens be exactly every building and cave. ESPECIALLY for cities connecting to the vast world. It was popular just to mod that feature in Skyrim because it was geared towards Skyrim's appeal, immersion. I think the engine could also use some upgrades on handling facial animations. Vehicles I can't imagine being too necessary for TES6 but I would still want development for that since technically horses are vehicles.

[@SarcasticDragonGaming]

That is a fair point, and I would agree that’s the next thing that needs to be worked on, but if my memory serves (it’s been over 3 years since I’ve played FO4) Fallout 4 had relatively seamless transitions between cells using elevators, you’d get in the elevator and appear on the roof outside for example, without actually encountering a loading screen. Why they chose not to implement that here I’m not sure, but I would suspect that if Fallout 4’s version of the engine could do it, Starfield’s can too, that could lead to some possibilities of more seamless traversal, but that’s mostly speculation on my part. I also think vehicles are possible, honestly my assumption is they’ll be added with the first DLC the way we got mounted combat in Dawnguard.

[@sanchezmikel]

You guys are amazing, the modding comunity of bethesda game is one of the best things I ever seen, I started playing starfield a couple days ago with a ton of mods and the experience is much better, Im enjoying the game very much, I hope that modder continue creating thing for starfield when the Creation Kit 2 launches, It can become one of the greatest game of de last 10 years, I suppose that creation kit must release next month or the next one

[@thegethconsensus393]

Oh my god, thank you! I’ve been saying this forever and it’s nice to finally hear someone share the sentiment. The creation engine is critical to modality and without it Bethesda is simply over.

[@Nuverotic]

“Unreal engine is still the same engine from the 90s…” Yea dude. Thats how they improve.

[@lolitaras22]

I like your attitude 👍

[@crossxfire0074]

Great perspective! It answered a lot of confusion I had regarding the creation engine. As someone who played modded Skyrim for years, I truly am looking forward to what can be achieved in starfield. When creation kit 2 comes out, I’m sure creation club will be monetising all the mods. There’s some signs pointing to it already, especially for console. What are thoughts on how that could work? Maybe you could do a video on the paid modding scene, especially what works and hasn’t?

[@SarcasticDragonGaming]

I personally haven’t engaged with Creation Club at all since its inception in Skyrim. I’ve never once opened the Creation Club menu, I don’t even know what the interface looks like. I could do a video about it perhaps when such a thing is announced, which I agree is coming without a doubt. My assumption and expectation is it will work the way it does in Skyrim and Fo4, a suite of “premium” mods that sit alongside a free mod workshop. I did a lot of trashing on CC when they first started it and I’m still not thrilled about it, but it’s been around for more than 5 years at this point and it hasn’t, at least as far as I can tell, harmed the overall mod community in any long term way, so if that’s the incentive Bethesda needs to focus their efforts on mod support, I’m prepared to tolerate it going forward, at least in its current form.

[@MrNic919]

Thank you, I've been saying this before SF even came out, cant wait foe CK2

[@Kershocker]

Hey Mate, I completely understand your perspective. I think the comment that bethesda rely on modders to do their work is still kinda true though. Not that they deliberately exclude things in hope modders fix it, but instead modders adding groundbreaking QoL mods that bethesda just does no implement into future games. i mean Unofficial Skyrim patch has been there for ages and they re-released skyrim so many times without adding any of the bug fixes from that mod. There was an old 'making of Oblivion' video that talks about fleshing out the stealth to be more like thief and one of the creators was saying 'If people want it they will just add it in and sure enough they did ' IDK just seems like you modders carry these games. I think the engine is a simple one to mod and modding these games has been way easier than others for me. But you're right without modders these games would die so they do rely on you.

[@lordshaxx7727]

Finally someone else who loves creation engine!!!!!!!!❤❤❤❤

[@SarcasticDragonGaming]

We are few, but we are legion.

[@CallusMalice]

I already knew the potential was great with mods no one was gonna change my mind about buying starfield.

[@autonomy_]

Very interesting video, appreciate your takes given your perspective. However it seems like there has been discourse about how the game is “unfixable” given the engine with regards to things like loading screens, lack of full ship travel, the bounding boxes of landing areas, etc. How do you reconcile these issues with your view?

[@SarcasticDragonGaming]

It is still too early to say what isn’t possible. Anyone who tells you they’re certain none of those things can be eventually improved is talking entirely out of their ass. I went over this to a degree in the follow up video. Those will all certainly be monumental challenges at the very least, but I struggle to believe that most of the people calling it unfixable have any idea what they’re talking about. There’s been a few of those in this comment section. One person even said it would be “impossible” to mod in interplanetary distances in space that can be manually traversed, when that’s actually something you CAN do in Vanilla Starfield and doesn’t even require a mod.

[@orygarmy8560]

I haven't created any mods myself but I've modded Skyrim to oblivion figuratively and literally I'm confident this community will make with game a hof. The biggest problem I see for modders in the future is ship mechanics and ground vehicles. I am basing that on my previous experience with fo4 and Skyrim vehicles. What do you think about vehicles in the creation engine?

[@SarcasticDragonGaming]

You’re absolutely right that previous games have had issues with vehicles because neither one really used them. I don’t think that’s likely to be an issue here though, the ships may not handle the best but they function well enough, tweaking the actual ship mechanics will be easy I’m sure, ground vehicles I can’t imagine would be all that hard, but that’s also something I expect will see official support in one of the DLCs.

[@schitzoflink8612]

I liked the perspective from a modder. Would you be interested in making more videos where you talk about how you might implement a mod? For example, with your knowledge how do you think an economy would be modded into the game? Either static high prices in one location and low in another or dynamic. The only thing I wanted to add was that when I see folks say something to the effect of "BGS uses modders as a crutch" they are talking about the modding community the same way you are and it's even worse that BGS would take such an amazing group of people for granted and essentially exploit them to save money.

[@vidar-5787]

Hey thx for the how to install sfse video 100%❤ wanted to ask a question let’s say I want to pull a fast one…I do like modding but once I finish games 😅I’m weird ik but I download Baka achievements enabler and have max stats now If I saved game and delete sfse files does that mean that game I saved gets corrupt or could I still play with that save game with the max stats? Thx a lot if you reply

[@SarcasticDragonGaming]

No you’ll be fine. The beautiful thing about SFSE plug-ins as opposed to regular ESP files is that they are loaded on the game’s start up rather than when the save is loaded. This makes mid-game installs and uninstalls effectively risk free.

[@theYoutubeHandle]

i agree, aside from the artists and whoever designed the looting gameplay loop, bethesda is largely incompetent. UE is not gonna save their incompetency. Their only hope is the modding community.

[@derrickcarangian1650]

Per PC gamer covering the starfield community patch and lack of mod support : “Where Baldridge's frustration stems from is that Bethesda hasn't made it easy for anyone else to fix Starfield either, because of the lack of mod support. For example, it took another modder who goes by the handle ElminsterAU over 400 hours to get a version of xEdit, a modding tool designed for Skyrim, working in Starfield. Summarising his effort in the release, Elminster concluded that ‘modding capabilities were not a consideration in the development of the game engine up to now’ and that "any existing modding capabilities appear to be incidental, stemming from the engine's legacy code base.’ Baldridge echoes Elminster's words. ‘The only reason we can mod it already is because we've modded the other games using the same engine and we know what to do. But a lot of stuff is really broken compared to the other games.’”

[@SarcasticDragonGaming]

I’m making an entire video about this right now. I am not happy with their lack of assistance either, and the extent of that didn’t become entirely clear until after I made this video. It doesn’t invalidate my point though, Elminster said literally the same thing I said, Creation Engine has been modded for over a decade and so it’s still been possible to do a great deal of good for the game even with all the difficulties. There are good things ahead, that would not have been true on another engine. I think the issue is less the problems with the new iteration of the engine and more that Bethesda is refusing to communicate with the mod community about any of them.

[@TrollogyExpert]

Can somebody explain to me why bathesta games dont have the ability to dynamic load and unload assets that are not in players view? Why to this days there are still loading screens and not "assets streaming". Is this something that is impossible on the Creation Engine or it is done for stability or other reasons?

[@fulviomaiorani6568]

*Grabs popcorns and waits for the boys to mod 64bit float precision in Starfield, shove in seamless planet to space transitions, in atmosphere ship combat and simulate planet rotation in real time.

[@RavenStorm332]

Star Citizen devs basically have to build all of their systems for the game from scratch which I don't think CIG though about before they started working on Star Citizen as well as CIG switching the engine from CryEngine to one they created themselves which of course set the game back, but SC is coming along albeit slowly. Starfield though is actually a fun game and most people thought that it was going to be a space simulator which Bethesda never said that it was one I can't wait for the official mod kit to come out for the Creation Engine 2 because I know that modders are going to create some really cool mods for it

[@ObliviousBeas7]

PREACH IT BROTHER!!!!!!

[@Rainbowhawk1993]

1 Year later… Todd Howard: “Who’s laughing now?”

[@momsel9378]

I'll wait for the day I can build a cabin or even a farm on my favourite planet

[@Nuverotic]

Finally someone who has the exact same mindset about this game as I do. Including how they feel about modding Bethesda games. Also if you like Adult mods mine are on Lovers Lab. :)

[@olsonbrandon91]

I don't care what anyone says.. the creation engine is so unique in how you can modify and customize it.. you're spot on about that!

[@somedudeAPS]

Good video! I agree with almost everything you said, specially your "review" of sorts in those 30s (gun play is fine, WTF is this suns, etc). Where i want to give my 2 cents is on the engine itself: - The CE does "legacy" stuff it doesn't need to do. You are a modder yourself, i'm sure you know the work people like Elianora do just by removing physics and iteractivity out of "junk" objects. Do we need to track where every single object a player drops in the world, and give it physics? Does that give the game any more value? It sure has a considerable and undeniable "cost". People that say "BGS should just use Unreal instead" are dumb, i'm not so sure people who say "BGS should make a new engine that removes some of the limitations" are wrong. Specially now that they have MICROSOFT engineering behind them. I'm not a game Dev, but i am a Dev, and "Legacy code" is a bitch, it's often is easier to just burn it all down than it is to rework stuff, i don't see how that could not be the case in game engines. You can only fix a house for so long, until it gets to a point you might as well tearing it down and rebuilding from scratch. I think we're there with the CE. I refuse to believe BGS hasn't employed the decade old tecnique of hiding loads behind animations because they're incompetent, so the only explanation i have is that are certain types of "load states" that can't be "hidden" that way. IMO that is unaceptable in 2023. Your engine NEEDS to be able to do that, and the abcense of mods that employ these for Skyrim or FO4, and they're still here for Starfield, tells me i'm right, it's the CE that can't do that more often than not. IMO, my ideal world, BGS creates a new engine, dropping stuff that has proven to be not necessary, all while maintaining it's ease of use so we still get the awesome modding community. Very often, less is more. I'm sure everything being tracked between cells and having intrisic physics it's only 1 out of several things just bloathing the CE without adding anything of value to it's games. As a side note, IDK why BGS doesn't delay games a little further so the CK releases WITH their games, day 1.

[@YeaaIJusShiddedOnEm]

I can not wait to get custom packs with new points of interest and new biome assets for procgen. I really really enjoyed exploration. There wasn’t much to see unfortunately after a few hours though

[@M-1996A1]

Do you think anyone will be able to allow the large ship to enter the planets orbit and then maybe target and activate the preset landing zones?

[@enigma9331]

I agree with you at most points. It's a great video! I might add, i had so much fun with the vanilla game. I honestly love it besides its many (many!) flaws. Ironically, I also recognized that mountains are too small (and im from flatland germany XD). Generally the whole scale of the landscapes seems weird. Anyway, the game got me motivated to start modding myself, let's see where it goes. I have so much ideas on what could be improved. I mean, its a Bethesda game. Ambitious, but half-baked. Flawed, but still lovable. I honestly don't think that Bethesdas vanilla games are that forgettable, but thats my personal pov. What interests me is: What is your point of view on Bethesda's announced long term support? It honestly sounds too good to be true. XD Edit: Forgot to sub, shame on me!

[@demonletsplays]

Well we are getting a land vehicles and the local maps have been updated and of course we're getting mod support and we can customize the inside of our ships so I would rate this an 8.5 at its best

[@plazma2891]

Oh my goodness someone who actually make sense I'm so sick of everybody saying that but that's the should use Unreal Engine because if they did that the mod community will not be the way it is the today if they ever did other popular engines and Other Drugs use. Look at cyberpunk 2077 CD projekt even released a mod tools and there ain't even no Quest mods yet s*** we're about ready to get Oblivion remaster mod. I don't want to hear it no more. hey man I like your your video end your way of thinking I'm subbing

[@r99azm80]

People who keep babbling about changing the engine have no idea how game engines work to begin with. At this point, their "engine" is nothing but a buzzword to make them look smart.

[@TheBismrk]

First of all, are you drunk youtube? Secondly, yooo Cars screening? Noice.

[@M-1996A1]

Do you think anyone will be able to allow seamless travel between planet chunks? Possibly a loading screen when you hit the invisible wall.

[@SarcasticDragonGaming]

In the future very possibly, it’s impossible to say how fast things will progress once Creation Kit arrives but a year or two down the line there’s not much that is off the table as far as I can tell.

[@AtharvaThumbare]

but can modders remove loading screens and make exploration rewarding as skyrim does will make most of ppl who were disappointed with starfield come back

[@ragingmonk6080]

I have been a member of Nexus Mods for so long that I was grandfathered in on the one time payment for life membership. Don't think they do that anymore. I bought the Digital Deluxe version of Starfield because mods will require the dlc. Knock it out coming out the gate. I have not published any mods for a while now but have 5000 hours in Skyrim. Joked that I used Skyrim to launch my mods. Have stated for years that Bethesda does not make a good RPG, they set the stage and modders complete it. Of course I agree with basically everything you have said here and think that most PC, BGS, community would. But console players can't see something they do not like in the game and fix it to their liking, fast. Because I have played Skyrim with a controller and feet up on the desk. Placed the controller on the desk, closed the game, opened Creation Kit, made the change I wanted to see and reloaded the game before the controller turned off. Can't do that with other engines. My complaint with starfield is that the game was delayed for one year, no problem. But it is a year late so it should have launched with Creation Kit.

[@SarcasticDragonGaming]

Absolutely agreed, I’m very disappointed that we’re waiting until early next year for CK, I made this video just before that statement was made, I agree it should’ve launched with the game, especially with BGS being effectively Microsoft’s flagship studio at this point.

[@ragingmonk6080]

@@SarcasticDragonGaming 👍

[@sasukeblix]

A really great video, dude. I strongly agree about the Creation Engine defining what a Bethesda game is. However, I partially disagree about 'mods not being a Bethesda crutch.' Like you mentioned, there are things missing or poorly done, and I have no doubts that the modding community will fix them. Probably when the Creation Kit launches, there will be a lot of mods fixing issues and overhauling (please, the perk tree!). But again, it's the mod community fixing it. Bethesda couldn't even maintain the water physics from Fallout 4, and they are charging you $70, while the mod community is doing this out of love and passion. When they announced the Creation Engine 2, I thought we'd get seamless loading (I don't know if it's possible for the CE), better NPCs (Oblivion's marketing was about this - scheduled NPCs)

[@SarcasticDragonGaming]

That’s fair enough, my main issue with that wording is that calling it a “crutch” implies that it shouldn’t be where their focus is. As for Creation Engine 2, I recognize that many of its improvements aren’t in areas where people wanted them to be, but there are innumerable enormous improvements, so much so that to me it’s plainly obvious even without having my hands on the Creation Kit itself, this game engine will likely have scalability unlike anything anyone has ever seen, the game may be underwhelming right now, but it is a game that will continue to evolve for the next decade in ways that probably seem impossible right now. I understand many people don’t like paying for something only to get what they actually wanted later from a third party, but that was the entire point of the game to me from its inception.

[@periurban]

I would have liked some kind of breakdown of what you think might be possible with mods in Starfield. Are we stuck with all those loading screens and empty planets? Will we ever be able to fly our ships around in a planet's atmosphere?

[@SarcasticDragonGaming]

I deliberately avoided doing too much speculation because it’s hard to say exactly without having the tools, which we won’t for at least a few months, something that would’ve definitely affected my final score had they not said that until after I published the video. Empty planets I wouldn’t worry about, there are already mods on PC that increase the density of POIs, and once we have the tools to make more creatures, more POIs, and more biomes, as well as hopefully more control over the terrain generation, there is endless potential for filling the worlds up, that’s a guarantee. The other two are more complicated, I imagine simply enabling you to fly through a landing zone will be simple enough, but I don’t know that they are large enough to really make use of it, I think the size of the zones would need to be expanded, which is not necessarily impossible, and I’m sure someone will pull it off eventually, but again it’s too early to say for sure how difficult that will be and as a result when you can expect to see that. Loading screens, again it’s hard to say, but I recall Fallout 4 made use of relatively seamless transitions between interiors and exteriors using elevators, so I assume the engine has the capability to do it, but whether that could be sufficiently adapted to serve as an in-between for entering an atmosphere, again, remains to be seen. There may be other ways though, that’s just my idea.

[@periurban]

@@SarcasticDragonGaming Thanks. Very interesting reply!