Elder Scrolls The Elder Scrolls VI - officially announced but you'll have to wait

[Funposter]

arch warhammer sounds like a fucking dipshit

 

[user]

Dialog wheel.... Far Cry 4 as a shooter is better. Has more cool weapons like the .700 nitro double barrel and has cool vehicles. But IMO the best Far Cry is FC2.

I just meant in a game genre sense, since you said FO4 is not an RPG. I agree, it's a Far Cry game with more dialog and some faction play. Oh and loot I guess, but I've never been Mr. Loot. As for gunplay for sure Far Cry 2 3 (haven't played 4 or 5 yet) is better. I also very much enjoyed Far Cry 3's stealth aspect when taking over outposts.

Farcry has better dialog too

 

[Haplo]

Fallout 4 not only got rid not only of ALL rpg elements but ALSO of cool gun mechanics. All cool classy guns like the .45-70 lever action to the cool ammo like dragon breath fully automatic 12 gauge and explosive .50 BMG rounds got removed.

I liked the shooty-shooty part in Fallout 4 much more.

 

[typical user]

You all, even dev menagers seem to forget one thing, the market is growing, more and more people buy games and if you throw more money at adverts then more people will buy it. FNV had shitty campaign, FO4 was on every bus stop in my shitty lands. Fallout 4 sold badly not because it is SF but because it is shitty game, end of story.

 

[DraQ]

Gee, I really can't wait to play some more radiant generated quests.

Radiant quests were brought back from Daggerfall and they are a great method of generating replayable filler grade content.
Yes, "filler" is usually peiorative but you can't expect every single quest to be PS:T main story (and not just because it's Bethesda </obvious_joke> ), some variation is good and, especially in an open world game, it's just not feasible. Radiant quests are just a procedural generation technique and procedural generation in general is just a labour saving one. Labour saving techniques are of paramount importance in open world games where quantity is a quality of it's own and Bethesda actually happens to know that.
You don't want your devs working on repetitive filler. You want one and done approach to it.

Fallout 76 showed pretty definitely that they want to be EA, and as long as they keep making money they're not going to diverge from their current path.

Wasn't FO76 the part where they burned they dick badly?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Radiant quests were brought back from Daggerfall and they are a great method of generating replayable filler grade content.
Yes, "filler" is usually peiorative but you can't expect every single quest to be PS:T main story (and not just because it's Bethesda </obvious_joke> ), some variation is good and, especially in an open world game, it's just not feasible. Radiant quests are just a procedural generation technique and procedural generation in general is just a labour saving one. Labour saving techniques are of paramount importance in open world games where quantity is a quality of it's own and Bethesda actually happens to know that.
You don't want your devs working on repetitive filler. You want one and done approach to it.

Reason #391 as to why "open world" games are garbage

 

[DraQ]

Radiant quests were brought back from Daggerfall and they are a great method of generating replayable filler grade content.
Yes, "filler" is usually peiorative but you can't expect every single quest to be PS:T main story (and not just because it's Bethesda </obvious_joke> ), some variation is good and, especially in an open world game, it's just not feasible. Radiant quests are just a procedural generation technique and procedural generation in general is just a labour saving one. Labour saving techniques are of paramount importance in open world games where quantity is a quality of it's own and Bethesda actually happens to know that.
You don't want your devs working on repetitive filler. You want one and done approach to it.

Reason #391 as to why "open world" games are garbage

Why the fuck are you posting in an open world thread then?

 

[Butter]

I'd be a lot more forgiving of Bethesda's radiant quests if their hand-crafted ones were any good. I've run into a lot of people who couldn't tell the difference because 95% of the quests are "clear this dungeon, grab the item, report back to me for a boring reward".

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I'd be a lot more forgiving of Bethesda's radiant quests if their hand-crafted ones were any good. I've run into a lot of people who couldn't tell the difference because 95% of the quests are "clear this dungeon, grab the item, report back to me for a boring reward".

did you ever consider that's on purpose?

 

[vortex]

Howard said in the interview some 2y ago they're testing new engine and new possibilities with radiant quests.

 

[Wunderbar]

new engine

 

[thesheeep]

Archive link: https://archive.fo/T7PXw#selection-369.93-369.106

Gee, I really can't wait to play some more radiant generated quests.

There is some good potential in generated quests.
But, yes, hoping that Bethesda of all developers would fulfill that potential is foolish.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

arch warhammer sounds like a fucking dipshit

He's a decent guy, at least in the Wh40k YT community.

 

[Manjuice Nutella]

Gee, I really can't wait to play some more radiant generated quests.

Radiant quests were brought back from Daggerfall and they are a great method of generating replayable filler grade content.
Yes, "filler" is usually peiorative but you can't expect every single quest to be PS:T main story (and not just because it's Bethesda </obvious_joke> ), some variation is good and, especially in an open world game, it's just not feasible. Radiant quests are just a procedural generation technique and procedural generation in general is just a labour saving one. Labour saving techniques are of paramount importance in open world games where quantity is a quality of it's own and Bethesda actually happens to know that.
You don't want your devs working on repetitive filler. You want one and done approach to it.

I guess the devil is in the details, or rather execution.

For example, there was one mod for Skyrim which affected the Companions fighters guild, in a way that you had to do X Radiant Quests before even getting access to start the "storyline" ones.

It greatly improved that part of Skyrim, despite making it more dependent on Radiant quests, because:

1) The main questline centered around lycanthropy within Companions' inner circle of veterans, and it made much more sense then when you had to "prove yourself" to the Guild, instead of participating in all the important ongoings from the get-go in Vanilla (which essentially unfolded since quest #1, where you're taken out on a trip by said veterans with them, for whichever reason). And it's not as if you were the only singular new recruit; there were many more ragtags running arround the Guild Hall, and yet you're the only one getting this special treatment, just because you're the player.
So by having this "X radiant quests done before advancement", it not only made that guild to work more like an actual guild, but also the storyline and its pacing worked better and was more believable.

2) Without this mod you'd never even bother with those quests, there's no incentive since you can access an entire storyline from Day 1 and those quests are, by themselves, hardly rewarding, the reward being some pittance of 150 gold or so. When placed in its proper context, they are serving as a vehicle for advancement, making them more rewarding in themselves, and helping with aforementioned pacing.

3) Those quests themselves were quite varied - beating up someone in a fistfight, hunting, killing an animal that broke into some farm, or rescuing a citizen kidnapped by bandits. And they also made sense in the context of the work you're supposed to be doing.

By contrast, the most prevalent Skyrim Radiant quest consisted of being sent to a random dungeon, in order to collect a random item that is always in a boss chest at the end of the dungeon, near that hidden secret passage conveniently located near the exit. That is all regardless of whoever gave this quest and whichever the pretext was.

Worse still, that was also the majority of non-Radiant quests, whether you're in a guild of warriors, or a guild of scholarly mages.

So I agree that in open world, such filler can be beneficial, because not everything can or has to be epic and unique. But it has to work within its context as a filler, as either day-to-day "mundane" activities or happenings, or chores within the context of some organization, and certainly not for the filler to be interchangeable in its entire quest design and structure with "normal" quests associated with unique characters.

 

[Funposter]

arch warhammer sounds like a fucking dipshit

He's a decent guy, at least in the Wh40k YT community.

i just mean his voice

 

[Cryomancer]

Reason #391 as to why "open world" games are garbage

Open world games CAN be done right. See mount & blade for eg. The problem with 99% of open world games is that nothing has consequences.

 

[Riddler]

SF sells way worse than fantasy, whether it's games, movies or literature. Always have always will.

Yeah, fantasy has sure sold much better than that small nothing properties called Star Wars, Avatar and Avengers.

 

[cvv]

SF sells way worse than fantasy, whether it's games, movies or literature. Always have always will.

Yeah, fantasy has sure sold much better than that small nothing properties called Star Wars, Avatar and Avengers.

SW is fantasy. Knights, swords and magic in space. And cartoons are cartoons, hero power fantasies. Not proper SF.

But yeah, SF seems to be doing much better in movies than in gaming or literature. Avatar is one example but there are many more. Someone smarter than you would list Alien, Close Encounters, E.T., Back to the Future, Terminator, Predator, Jurassic Park, Independence Day or Matrix - all bonafide science-fiction and mainstream blockbuster hits at the same time.

 

[DalekFlay]

Radiant quests were brought back from Daggerfall and they are a great method of generating replayable filler grade content.
Yes, "filler" is usually peiorative but you can't expect every single quest to be PS:T main story (and not just because it's Bethesda </obvious_joke> ), some variation is good and, especially in an open world game, it's just not feasible. Radiant quests are just a procedural generation technique and procedural generation in general is just a labour saving one. Labour saving techniques are of paramount importance in open world games where quantity is a quality of it's own and Bethesda actually happens to know that.
You don't want your devs working on repetitive filler. You want one and done approach to it.

I think Piranha Bytes games show you can do open world with not only no radiant quests or even super minor bullshit quests (usually), but also without respawning enemies and a firmly designed level progression and cap. Skyrim is obviously bigger budget, and probably has a lot more dungeons and whatnot than even a big PB game, which is the difference. That scale and "walk any direction and find whit to do" aspect is core to the broad appeal of their games. However is it needed for open world games? Is it the best in a quality, not sales, perspective? I'd say no.

 

[Zombra]

Procedural content can be excellent. Look at most roguelike games - you gonna tell me FTL sucks? - or titles like Jagged Alliance: Deadly Games. The trick is that, first of all, the basic gameplay has to be enjoyable enough to support it; and secondly, the combination of random elements has to be sufficiently complex to produce a truly unpredictable experience. Skyrim's quests amounted to "find the [item] at [place] after walking down a linear corridor fighting [enemy type] one at a time", which isn't enough.

To bring examples of good procedural games closer to a first-person fantasy shooter RPG, Ziggurat is a nice low-budget one that understands combining elements to keep things interesting. If you have flying skulls and armored enemies you can't damage from the front plodding towards you throwing spears in an open room with intermittent lava spouts, that requires a different strategy from fighting the same enemies in narrow, twisting stairways, or fighting retreating artillery monsters in the same lava room, or, or, or ...

Can Bethesda design enemies to have more interesting elements than "+/- a bigger hit point bar"? Can they have map elements more relevant than "this is a place where the monster stands" or "there's a ledge you can't get to until you've beaten the dungeon"? Doubtful, but it can certainly be done.

 

[DraQ]

I guess the devil is in the details, or rather execution.

For example, there was one mod for Skyrim which affected the Companions fighters guild, in a way that you had to do X Radiant Quests before even getting access to start the "storyline" ones.

It greatly improved that part of Skyrim, despite making it more dependent on Radiant quests, because:
(...)

And that's a pretty great illustration how you can use procedural quests for significant incline.

3) Those quests themselves were quite varied - beating up someone in a fistfight, hunting, killing an animal that broke into some farm, or rescuing a citizen kidnapped by bandits. And they also made sense in the context of the work you're supposed to be doing.

By contrast, the most prevalent Skyrim Radiant quest consisted of being sent to a random dungeon, in order to collect a random item that is always in a boss chest at the end of the dungeon, near that hidden secret passage conveniently located near the exit. That is all regardless of whoever gave this quest and whichever the pretext was.

Yeah, but Companions radiant quests you mention are also just vanilla Skyrim quests. They weren't added by mod, the mod merely makes them more important to guild progression and fixes serious pacing issues by that.
Also, many Skyrim radiant quests are directly inspired by Daggerfall ones.

So I agree that in open world, such filler can be beneficial, because not everything can or has to be epic and unique. But it has to work within its context as a filler, as either day-to-day "mundane" activities or happenings, or chores within the context of some organization, and certainly not for the filler to be interchangeable in its entire quest design and structure with "normal" quests associated with unique characters.

SW is fantasy. Knights, swords and magic in space. And cartoons are cartoons, hero power fantasies. Not proper SF.

But yeah, SF seems to be doing much better in movies than in gaming or literature. Avatar is one example but there are many more. Someone smarter than you would list Alien, Close Encounters, E.T., Back to the Future, Terminator, Predator, Jurassic Park, Independence Day or Matrix - all bonafide science-fiction and mainstream blockbuster hits at the same time.

Avatard is kind of two very different things in a single package:
One is very worldbuilding with meticulously researched spaceship design, and all manners of cool background worldbuilding, aimed at assorted geekery and SF turbonerds.
The other is ultra-simplistic Pocahontas in space with elongated furless blue catpeople standing in for Indians, and is aimed at children, manchildren and American audiences.

 

[DraQ]

I think Piranha Bytes games show you can do open world with not only no radiant quests or even super minor bullshit quests (usually), but also without respawning enemies and a firmly designed level progression and cap. Skyrim is obviously bigger budget, and probably has a lot more dungeons and whatnot than even a big PB game, which is the difference. That scale and "walk any direction and find whit to do" aspect is core to the broad appeal of their games. However is it needed for open world games? Is it the best in a quality, not sales, perspective? I'd say no.

I would say that the crucial part of the definition of an open world is that it can be treated as open system.
That means inability to exhaust it during reasonably normal gameplay.
It can be achieved by world being too big to reasonably explore in full over the course of normal gameplay, respawn mechanics, or more in-depth simulation of world replenishing itself.
If you can literally run out of things to do when playing normally, then it's not an open world game.

 

[A horse of course]

arch warhammer sounds like a fucking dipshit

 

[DalekFlay]

I would say that the crucial part of the definition of an open world is that it can be treated as open system.
That means inability to exhaust it during reasonably normal gameplay.
It can be achieved by world being too big to reasonably explore in full over the course of normal gameplay, respawn mechanics, or more in-depth simulation of world replenishing itself.
If you can literally run out of things to do when playing normally, then it's not an open world game.

I'd agree that a large sense of scale can help an open world game. Risen 2 was let down by several factors but the biggest one was a lack of feeling like it was a big open world. I loved that I played Skyrim for dozens of hours and still had a couple main cities I hadn't even stepped foot in yet. However do I think that's a crucial aspect? I don't think I'd say so, no. The crucial aspect for me is having a plethora of choice about which direction to head, and the ability to find different interesting things depending on where you happen to stroll. Bethesda excels at that of course, which is why they're so popular, but despite a smaller map I think games like Risen have much the same appeal, and without the randomization.

 

[Morgoth]

I don't see this game released prior 2025 or so. If at all. *coof*