• 7bicycles [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      I’m not much of a gamer anymore but cultural osmosis and all, I genuinely was surprised to find out Starfield was a bethesda game

      • Cowbee
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        1 year ago

        The true hot take most aren’t ready to hear is that launch Starfield is a better RPG than launch Skyrim and launch Fallout 4, even if it’s a mediocre game overall.

          • Cowbee
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            1 year ago

            I agree, but I’ve had gamers absolutely mald for such a lukewarm take

        • zkrzsz [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          1 year ago

          Skyrim came out in 11/11/2011. Starfield is 12 years after and I would say that expectation for the qualities should be better. And compared to Starfield in gaming’s influences, Skyrim decimates Starfield.

          • Cowbee
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            1 year ago

            Graphical fidelity and controls improve over time as technology improves. What doesn’t improve nearly as much is game design. That’s not to say that improvements haven’t been made, but by your own logic Morrowind destroys the fuck out of Skyrim when it comes to being an RPG despite being older. Starfield actually reversed this downward trend.

            I never tried to argue that Starfield was more influential, because I agree, Skyrim has more of an impact on gaming culture despite being largely okayish.

            • zkrzsz [he/him]@hexbear.net
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              1 year ago

              My point is comparing games releasing 12 years apart like this is redundant, isn’t it expected that the sequel/next game from the same studio should have better quality (in this case RPG) than the previous one?

              In the years after the 1st release till next game/sequel, devs can have more experience/money/bigger team/ect.

              • Cowbee
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                1 year ago

                I know what your point is, it’s just not applicable to Game Design, only to graphical fidelity and perhaps controls and smoothness. Throwing more money or a bigger team isn’t going to make the actual Role Playing better, and historically the opposite has happened. Chasing profits leads to making games with more mass appeal, and removes niches.

                Again, see Morrowind, Fallout 1/2/New Vegas, Arcanum, Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, and more all have vastly superior RPG mechanics to Skyrim, Oblivion, Fallout 4, and Starfield, despite having smaller budgets, a less experienced team, and less money.

        • jabrd [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          1 year ago

          Strong disagree. There are no unique builds in starfield because there are such clearly necessary perks to unlock and the never ending, NG+ focus of the game pushes you towards unlocking everything anyway. Similarly no story decisions lock you out of other options later. There’s really no role you can play in starfield except “protagonist.” Not so much a defense of Skyrim, just talking well deserved shit about starfield

          • Cowbee
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            1 year ago

            The same thing happens in Skyrim, lol. As compared with Skyrim, Starfield is better.

            • jabrd [he/him]@hexbear.net
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              1 year ago

              I just think starfields an even shallower experience. Like think of the ability to specialize towards a weapon type. In starfield melee weapons can’t be customized and don’t get tiers like the other weapon types so they become unusable after a certain amount of play time. There are fewer energy weapons in starfield than in fallout 4, it feels sparse playing with the same 6 guns for the entire game. The EM weapons aren’t integrated into any sort of meaningful gameplay loop for incapacitating enemies instead of killing them. You have to just shoot their comatose bodies or let your companions do it for you. Ultimately everyone gets funneled towards using ballistic weapons just by nature of how underdeveloped the other options are. At least in skyrim playing as a mage vs a warrior felt like two distinct and separately rewarding play styles. Again I’m not trying to do too much skyrim defending, starfield is just a bad video game

              • robot_dog_with_gun [they/them]@hexbear.net
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                1 year ago

                At least in skyrim playing as a mage vs a warrior felt like two distinct and separately rewarding play styles. Again I’m not trying to do too much skyrim defending, starfield is just a bad video game

                lol weird to spell “stealth archer” two different ways. i tried to watch a video of the starfield speedrun and fell asleep, maybe modders can rescue it but since it’s not even open-world anymore idk how they would. skyrim was barely an rpg and the beth games after it aren’t doing any of the things i want from the genre at all.

              • Cowbee
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                1 year ago

                Sure, Starfield is a step down in quite a few ways. Still a better RPG.

        • macabrett[they/them]@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          I have no idea how you’re defining RPG here, but Starfield is worse than any launch Bethesda game since at least Morrowind, in my opinion. The hook in Bethesda games for me is discovery. You set off in a direction on a quest and discover things on the path that pull you different directions. You get lost in a world.

          There is not a single moment in the 25 hours of Starfield I played where this happened. It’s just literally not possible with the way they designed the game.

          • Cowbee
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            1 year ago

            The ability to actually roleplay a character you create, ie mechanics within game to reinforce that which you design your character as.

            Medical skill checks for doctors, background checks for Freestar natives, piracy subcycles for pirates, etc.

            What you’re describing has nothing to do with roleplaying, just the setting, which I never tried to argue was better in Starfield because it isn’t.

            • macabrett[they/them]@lemmy.ml
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              1 year ago

              Yeah, that’s why I simply said it was a worse game than their previous titles (not worse RPG). I’d argue having better roleplaying mechanics without an interesting world to use them in is a preeeeetty useless endeavor.

              • Cowbee
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                1 year ago

                Sure. I’d also argue that having better exploration without having decent roleplaying is also completely useless for an RPG.

        • 7bicycles [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          1 year ago

          pretty good, I really do appreciate video games as an art form now

          I did also always drift towards rather more niche shit like STALKER and Arma, I don’t think that stuff gives you the slop brainworms

    • Hexarei@programming.dev
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      1 year ago

      I literally just hit 500 hours. I bought it on launch day and have played it 4 full times and running three active play throughs. One solo, one with my wife, one with a close friend.

      Still having an absolute blast just trying all the things. Currently playing a dark urge drow and it’s so different from even my dark urge tiefling. And very very different from my goodie two shoes paladin. Ugh I’m just having so much fun with it lol

  • Infamousblt [any]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    Meanwhile the game where you can be in queer polyam relationships with your entire party and it’s fine is going to win most of the awards. Go woke get paid, apparently.

    • zifnab25 [he/him, any]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      Go woke get paid, apparently.

      Or fuck, just write some dialogue that isn’t more thin and wooden than an IKEA bedroom suite.

      Much like Disco Elysium, the game does afford you plenty of opportunities to be a pig, a freak, and a sadistic asshole by turns (hell, they even give you a background that’s carte blanche murder-hobo). There’s no reason Hogwarts-heads can’t live out their most fascist fantasies by playing a full team of slavish dogmatic Githyanki or rolling Trad Clerics who go from scene to scene and murdering every White Knight and Goth Girl they come across. Its all available to you, if you don’t mind short-circuiting a bunch of fun cut scenes.

      Half the joke of BG3 is how accommodating it is to virtually every play style you can imagine by padding out the plot. You’d never know it was Woke unless you insisted on staring over someone’s shoulder through their entire play.

      • Sephitard9001 [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        It’s not enough to be able to choose to be a fascist piece of shit, other options must be locked from the player entirely to satisfy gamer-gulag

        See their reaction to Kingdom Come: Deliverance for instance

      • LaGG_3 [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        I don’t think so?

        queer polyam relationships with your entire party

        I think it’s just the bear drood +1, but it’s been quite a few patches and hotfixes since I last played.

        • OprahsedCreature@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          Well now I need to know which game it is, because they win an Engels award for that “Origin of the Family” level take.

      • NovaPrime@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        Yup. You can’t be in a relationship with everyone at once due to personal conflicts, but there are pairs that will go for it depending on how you play it

  • jabrd [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    Any defense of a piece of media that cites sales numbers should result in forced reeducation. My son you have become the brand, repent and return to humanity

  • Wheaties [she/her]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    Outer Wilds never got a game award. I mean, I had to go look it up just now just in case, because the game awards are about as on my radar as the ocars.

      • alcoholicorn [comrade/them, doe/deer]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        They’d have to make it a lifetime award, good VR games take at least a year to get polished/shine though all the garbage VR apps.

        According to steam charts, only like 2 of the top 100 VR games by current player count came out in 2023; a VR Tarkov clone and Gorilla Tag.

    • iheartneopets
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      1 year ago

      Didn’t it win a BAFTA? Or was it just nominated? That counts more than a game award, imo

  • aaaaaaadjsf [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    It’s not nominated because people and critics are tired of the same open world pseudo RPG game. Same reason Starfield did not get nominated. Look at the nominations:

    • Alan Wake 2 (survival horror)
    • Baldur’s Gate 3 (a proper RPG)
    • Spider Man 2 (it’s Spiderman, simply flying around the city is fun)
    • Resident Evil 4 (remake of legendary survival horror game)
    • Super Mario Bros. Wonder (it’s super Mario)
    • The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (it’s Zelda).

    The only game there that could fit in the “open world pseudo RPG” genre is Zelda, but it’s usually so well made and executed as a Zelda game that most people don’t really care. People will play a Zelda game no matter the genre.

  • Deadend [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    No fan of the potter game ever talks about the emotional resonance of the plot lines or how good the combat is.

    Which is Wild in a way. They love this game but can’t seem to like any part of the game other than “I walked around Hogwarts”

  • Grownbravy [they/them]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    If it’s such a good game, why havent i heard anyone try and spoil it?

    Destiny had a dogshit pile of a story, yet i know about what’s going on in it.