So.. Starfield...

[Wandering_Mania]

1 hour ago, DocClox said:

So if you want to balance the game for that sort of team, you need to make the fights more challenging. But then that penalizes the player who likes to adventure solo, and that's probably not a good thing for a Bethesda game.

That was somewhat easier to do with the old 'Oblivion difficulty slider'. But now it's all simplified to static settings, all of which are too easy even for a solo. I mean, I always play FO4 on 'Very Hard', because I want to still have the difficulty and the ability to hard save (far too many 'zoning crashes' to disable hard saves with survival). But it's still zero challenge.

 

And even in SF, when you get higher up in the levels, and get your build somewhat set up, even higher difficulties are just the same old 'easy-peasy lemon squeezy'.

[Mr. Otaku]

5 hours ago, DocClox said:

 

Balancing is tricky. I remember back in Fallout 3, I used a mod there to recruit four likely women from the Wasteland. I gave them decent armor and combat shotguns and they looked great. But then when combat started, I never got a look in! No sooner had someone said "boo" to me than they were dead.

 

So if you want to balance the game for that sort of team, you need to make the fights more challenging. But then that penalizes the player who likes to adventure solo, and that's probably not a good thing for a Bethesda game.

 

Now with multi-follower mods, this isn't generally a problem. You just load other mods to balance out the difficulty to suit your playstyle. This is why the players to use Inigo and Lucien and AFF and so forth also tend to be the ones playing at Legendary with various combat mods on top to make the game more challenging. But that's harder to do if the multi-follower option is baked into the base game.

 

'Least, that's what I've always assumed.

 

You know i actually didn't think about that.

 

One way i can think of solving this would be to increase the enemy sponginess by a set multiplier for each active follower to make keep the difficulty balance steady without the player changing any difficulty settings themselves. I can't say for certain if that's a good idea or not but it's food for thought. This is also the reason i don't travel with too many companions in Skyrim and Fallout 4 cause i don't even get to fight atp lmao.

[Mr. Otaku]

15 hours ago, Wandering_Mania said:

I have 'Central Air' in my apartment, plus I reside in a 'colder mountain climate', plus I have a water/liquid cooled CPU, and it all still don't help much.

Okay that's kinda strange tbh, i know Starfield puts unneeded stress on the CPU but i really don't get that kind of temp issues. Cyberpunk on overdrive mode and path tracing on is the only game that gets close to that kind of temp for me.

 

 

15 hours ago, Wandering_Mania said:

My real question is; Why not just go 'balls to the wall', and include everything that was once 'behind the veil' in the foreground? I mean BGS is going to get hit with a bullshit, overly harsh, and meaningless ESRB rating anyway; And with the complete phaseout of 'in store retail distribution' almost here; Would it really be so bad if BGS got hit with an 'AO' rating for a 'fan targeted' TES/FO game? Steam will still carry it, any any 'console copies' can be sold directly by them on their online store. It's not too bad of a punishment any more to be hit with it, because there are now more options for sales than there were before.

I could be totally off on this but i have a feeling Microsoft had something to do with that, obviously i can't substantiate that claim in any way but someone in Bethesda or in Microsoft must've thought "toning down" would make it more appealing and therefore more profitable. But the baffling part is surely they know about games like GTA, RDR and Cyberpunk that absolutely don't hold back with their narrative "edge" and still become massively successful, and it's not like Bethesda have to copy them either considering they're the creators of TES.

 

They need to do a serious reevaluation or else TES6 will suffer.

[Wandering_Mania]

2 hours ago, Mr. Otaku said:

Okay that's kinda strange tbh, i know Starfield puts unneeded stress on the CPU but i really don't get that kind of temp issues. Cyberpunk on overdrive mode and path tracing on is the only game that gets close to that kind of temp for me.

Well, the fact that only SF does that, no other game has gotten my rig to hit those temps. So it sure don't look good for SF being the culprit.

 

2 hours ago, Mr. Otaku said:

I could be totally off on this but i have a feeling Microsoft had something to do with that, obviously i can't substantiate that claim in any way but someone in Bethesda or in Microsoft must've thought "toning down" would make it more appealing and therefore more profitable. But the baffling part is surely they know about games like GTA, RDR and Cyberpunk that absolutely don't hold back with their narrative "edge" and still become massively successful, and it's not like Bethesda have to copy them either considering they're the creators of TES.

Well, with an aging population, comes a more 'mature themed' demand. If MS was part of the issue, for a 'toning down' then MS needs to do their homework.

 

3 hours ago, Mr. Otaku said:

They need to do a serious reevaluation or else TES6 will suffer.

Yes they do. Especially after what SF lacked in almost every 'mature theme' yet was still rated 'M'. I mean if it was only rated 'M' for the option to use some fake drugs, that's the stupidest reason imaginable to be rating it that high. Especially coming from the American 'Pill popping society', where the 'illegal drugs' are somewhat safer, than the 'legal' ones in some cases.

[steelpanther24]

5 hours ago, Wandering_Mania said:

Yes they do. Especially after what SF lacked in almost every 'mature theme' yet was still rated 'M'. I mean if it was only rated 'M' for the option to use some fake drugs, that's the stupidest reason imaginable to be rating it that high. Especially coming from the American 'Pill popping society', where the 'illegal drugs' are somewhat safer, than the 'legal' ones in some cases.

 

Now that gaming is a recognized legit business, are people who play computer games making marketing decisions?  I sometimes think that the mini story line in the comic book shop in FO4 was presaging what was happening (new management that doesn't know comics comes in and changes everything, potentially causing the Chinese to nuke the US).

[FauxFurry]

BGS Gamebryo/Creation Engine games (including the one that they merely published) are generally balanced for one humanoid follower and one animal/pet follower (which can include robots in Fallout games, especially ED-E). Does Starfield have no non-humanoid followers to place into the non-humanoid follower slots yet?

[FauxFurry]

10 hours ago, Mr. Otaku said:

Okay that's kinda strange tbh, i know Starfield puts unneeded stress on the CPU but i really don't get that kind of temp issues. Cyberpunk on overdrive mode and path tracing on is the only game that gets close to that kind of temp for me.

 

 

I could be totally off on this but i have a feeling Microsoft had something to do with that, obviously i can't substantiate that claim in any way but someone in Bethesda or in Microsoft must've thought "toning down" would make it more appealing and therefore more profitable. But the baffling part is surely they know about games like GTA, RDR and Cyberpunk that absolutely don't hold back with their narrative "edge" and still become massively successful, and it's not like Bethesda have to copy them either considering they're the creators of TES.

 

They need to do a serious reevaluation or else TES6 will suffer.

The frontrunner for game of the year from many sites and publications has full frontal nudity, sex scenes and child death in it. There definitely no need to tone anything down to be met with mainstream success in the gaming industry any longer.

[Wandering_Mania]

3 hours ago, steelpanther24 said:

Now that gaming is a recognized legit business, are people who play computer games making marketing decisions?

Not at all, not any more. The people who make the decisions now days, are people looking to make money, no more, no less. Then they turn around and use that money for illicit activities; I mean why do you think so many CEOs where in that ' 'E. man's' little black book'? And why do you think that 'little black book' is actively being suppressed and stamped out of existence? Those with the most money, make the rules of society; And guess who's got the most money, Corporate CEOs.

 

I can't remember exactly who said it, but I think it was 21Kiloton:

"In the old days, games where made for gamers to make money. Now, games are made to make money from gamers."

[Miauzi]

Vor 7 Stunden sagte Wandering_Mania:

Überhaupt nicht, nicht mehr. Die Menschen, die heutzutage die Entscheidungen treffen, wollen Geld verdienen, nicht mehr und nicht weniger. Dann machen sie kehrt und verwenden das Geld für illegale Aktivitäten; Ich meine, warum glauben Sie, dass so viele CEOs in diesem „E. Das kleine schwarze Buch des Menschen? Und warum glauben Sie, dass dieses „kleine schwarze Buch“ aktiv unterdrückt und ausgelöscht wird? Wer das meiste Geld hat, bestimmt die Regeln der Gesellschaft; Und raten Sie mal, wer das meiste Geld hat: Konzernchefs.

 

Ich kann mich nicht genau erinnern, wer es gesagt hat, aber ich glaube, es war 21Kiloton:

„Früher wurden Spiele dafür gemacht , dass Spieler Geld verdienen. Heute werden Spiele gemacht, um mit Spielern Geld zu verdienen.“

 

But this is not a phenomenon of the last 1-2 years - it is something that started more than 20 years ago...

... and according to the laws of economics (yes - they do exist ... you don't even have to read "Das Kapital" by Mr. Marx) it has increased and increased.

How could it ... the player wants better and better graphics in the game - wants more and more splendid worlds etc. ...? and of course the players and the marketing increase each other to ever newer heights ... which then results in one thing above all -> you need immense sums of money for the development of such a game.

In the 1980s it was still possible to produce a good game in 2-3 days on your own ... for the last 20 years you need sums in the millions.

It is logical - that a bank will hardly provide such a thing with loans ... if there is not a massive amount of "own capital" ... which only people from the risk-capital sector are prepared to give.

And whoever has had to deal with these people ... like I did to finance certain projects in engineering construction ... you get an idea of how they "tick".

Ergo, nothing different happens in the games sector than in the "normal" industries on the planet Earth.

PUNKT

[Wandering_Mania]

11 minutes ago, Miauzi said:

the player wants better and better graphics in the game

Says who? The developers? Or the actual players? Personally I would be fine with graphics that didn't look the best, if the content, and mechanics where there to subsidize them.

 

13 minutes ago, Miauzi said:

and of course the players and the marketing increase each other to ever newer heights

But the marketing is where most of the budget for game development is going now days. It used to be that the budget went into the game creation itself, now the game creation is 'release half baked now, finish in patches that take 2+ years to release'.

 

17 minutes ago, Miauzi said:

for the last 20 years you need sums in the millions.

Again, most of that money is all marketing. I mean Empyrion had no marketing, it outdoes most of the 'Space game' genre mechanics wise, and they made it with only the money that they gained via Steam 'Early Access' sales as far as I'm aware. The graphics/animations aren't the best, but the mechanics more than make up for it.

 

22 minutes ago, Miauzi said:

it is something that started more than 20 years ago...

And yes, a lot of this started to happen when gaming moved into the 'Mainstream'; But this is why 'gatekeeping' is so important; It keeps a hobby pure, and only those that truly enjoy it, are the ones deciding how it progresses.

[DocClox]

49 minutes ago, Wandering_Mania said:

But the marketing is where most of the budget for game development is going now days

 

Do you have a source for that? Or is it just supposition?

 

Genuinely interested.

[Miauzi]

Vor 2 Minuten sagte DocClox:

 

Hast du eine Quelle dafür? Oder ist es nur eine Vermutung?

 

Wirklich interessiert.

 

Well - there were times - that there was an "end screen" after the completion of the game - where all the participants were listed ... sorted by the different departments.

Even 25 years ago, there were quite a lot of people involved in distribution/marketing for bigger titles.

And of course, today a AAA title doesn't sell without marketing. I agree that this department does not consume the biggest part of the budget... it doesn't have to!

Much more important is the fact -> Who has the PRIMATE say in important decisions?

And here the sales department is at the top ... because their "prodigies" can also sell a farmer who has only one dairy cow -> a large automatic milking plant and take the only cow available as a down payment (the joke is almost 40 years old here in Germany ... and still valid).

In the case of films and series from the cinema or TV sector, the budget for the advertising campaigns now accounts for the largest share of the total costs ... ergo, the deduction that there is a similar development in the gaming industry -> CANNOT be dismissed out of hand.

[Wandering_Mania]

6 hours ago, DocClox said:

Do you have a source for that? Or is it just supposition?

 

Genuinely interested.

Well, it's a bit of bit of both actually. Take for example the Cyberpunk 2077 ad campaign. They bought ad space in Times Square that people know costs well over $1,000,000USD, and that wasn't even the only ad that was around. So it's easy to figure out at that point that a 'multi-million dollar game budget' has a good large chunk dropped into the advertising of it.

 

But as for a 'direct source', I hear a lot of things over the passing of time news wise, but for me to directly point you to them... Well, I don't really collect those 'credentials', so you'll just have to do your own searching for that.

[steelpanther24]

On 10/6/2023 at 8:32 AM, DocClox said:

 

Do you have a source for that? Or is it just supposition?

 

Genuinely interested.

Cyberpunk 2077

A more recent AAA game, Cyberpunk 2077, was released in 2020. The game development budget breakdown was $121 million and a whopping $209 million on marketing alone. Despite its many glitches, it still sold 13 million copies in 2 weeks.

 

https://reduxgamestudios.com/game-development-budget-breakdown-in-2022/

 

Supporting information on breakdown of costs associated with promotion of a game (basically lots of variables as Steam has an advantage over its "own" games vs someone like BGS)

https://www.alistdaily.com/strategy/cost-of-marketing-games-steve-fowler-alist-games/

Cut and paste from the source cited above.

 

Spoiler

As a way to tie all of this information together, allow me to provide you with a real-world scenario. Let’s say we have a PC Steam game that targets core FPS fans and the financial team has forecasted $10 million in revenue in the first year – I don’t know if we’d call this indie, but it’s not a giant game either. Depending on which approach you take to derive a marketing budget, let’s imagine it’s set at $1.5 million or 15 percent of forecasted gross revenue.

As stated previously, 80 percent of the marketing budget – here, $1.2 million – should be set aside for paid media. If you’re wondering how far this will go, you’re asking the right question. On Facebook, for example, with an average CPM of $7.19, that 167 million impressions. On Google Display (GDN), with an average CPM of $2.80, that’s 429 million impressions. And on Twitch, with an average CPM of $11.24, that’s 107 million impressions. As a side note, industry calculations show an average CTR of .7 percent and CTC (for a free-to-play movie or PC game) of 15 percent.

It should be noted that there is a certain skill level associated with earning the average .7 percent CTR. Spending the money, while necessary, is not the only requirement. Larger publishers, marketers and developers, whether alone or as partners, will consistently earn better-than-average results simply because of experience. Independent developers should not expect a 7 percent CTR given that it is largely dependent on the ability to produce good creative, strong copy and more. An independent developer must also take into account that a portion of their budget will be spent on resources that larger developers and publishers already have in place and have employed successfully in the past.

Clearly, GDN is the most effective network, yielding you roughly 3 million landing page hits and approximately 450,000 installs. Needless to say, this is not enough to hit your revenue forecast – you need more installs. Enter: owned and earned media.

The remainder of the budget must account for ad creative costs of between $20,000 and $40,000, a $50,000 website, $30,000 worth of social ad creative development, and a year’s worth of trailers at $75,000. Next, you must account for the ad serving fees, any localization costs, brand creative costs, emails distribution costs, affiliate spends, and more, which may add upwards of $50,000 to the total cost. 

 

[steelpanther24]

On a sort of related note, this game "Bright Memory" was developed by a team of one. 

 

Spoiler

https://store.steampowered.com/app/955050/Bright_Memory/

 

[steelpanther24]

On 10/5/2023 at 11:25 PM, Wandering_Mania said:

I can't remember exactly who said it, but I think it was 21Kiloton:

"In the old days, games where made for gamers to make money. Now, games are made to make money from gamers."

While I don't necessarily agree with everything you said, the part above is very, very true. 

 

On 10/6/2023 at 7:34 AM, Wandering_Mania said:

Says who? The developers? Or the actual players? Personally I would be fine with graphics that didn't look the best, if the content, and mechanics where there to subsidize them.

 

Games like "Papers, please" come to mind. 

[Miauzi]

Vor 6 Minuten sagte Steelpanther24:

Obwohl ich nicht unbedingt mit allem einverstanden bin, was Sie gesagt haben, ist der obige Teil sehr, sehr wahr. 

 

 

Da fallen mir Spiele wie „Papers, please“ ein. 

 

He was responding to a text of mine ... and assumed that I was of the opinion that all players want better and better graphics.

But I am actually of the opposite opinion - I am one of the many gamers who clearly prefer content and mechanics to pure "picture-book graphics".

Such gamers, however, do not seem to appear officially - if you include the "normal" media in addition to the gamer media - we don't seem to exist at all.

Such gamers are a nuisance - even the hardware industry can't generate record sales with them.

*sarcasm

But of course, people (software as well as hardware manufacturers) like to pick out exactly the group of gamers that best fits their own marketing concept ... and so something like a "self-fulfilling prophecy" arises.

?

 

 

[Popo07]

3 hours ago, Miauzi said:

He was responding to a text of mine ... and assumed that I was of the opinion that all players want better and better graphics.

But I am actually of the opposite opinion - I am one of the many gamers who clearly prefer content and mechanics to pure "picture-book graphics".

Such gamers, however, do not seem to appear officially - if you include the "normal" media in addition to the gamer media - we don't seem to exist at all.

Such gamers are a nuisance - even the hardware industry can't generate record sales with them.

*sarcasm

But of course, people (software as well as hardware manufacturers) like to pick out exactly the group of gamers that best fits their own marketing concept ... and so something like a "self-fulfilling prophecy" arises.

?

 

     I don't see why there's a need to have photo realistic graphics in videogames. Skyrim/Fo4 was a happy medium for me. Personally I would rather they spend those resources on actual gameplay, but that's just my opinion.

[Miauzi]

Vor einer Stunde sagte Popo07:

 

Ich verstehe nicht, warum es in Videospielen einen Bedarf an fotorealistischen Grafiken gibt. Skyrim/Fo4 war für mich ein glücklicher Mittelweg. Persönlich wäre es mir lieber, wenn sie diese Ressourcen für das eigentliche Gameplay ausgeben würden, aber das ist nur meine Meinung.

 

When you see what you can achieve with the current "un-real" engine ... it already has the quality of cinema films or good TV series.

the need for such high-performance graphics is felt by a majority of gamers ... but maybe the gaming industry is just telling itself that it does.

just like the cinema industry - which, in my view, now only relies on graphics/trick technology and meaningful (or even demanding) plots are completely "outsourced" (i.e. non-existent).

I am of the opinion that behind this is also the financial and administrative pressure of the financiers ... they want a product that can be sold to a sufficiently large target group.

You and I or others who think similarly are ... completely not on their list

[Battletooth]

i came here to see if there is any mod progress or any adult mod progress and while i have had some fun with game, 250h+ and several NG+.

Game starts slow, but it gets bit more interesting after playing while, you got lot of things to do.

After some point everything looks same, all stuff you do in game are boring and repetitive, everything so clinically clean and boring.

 

Soling 6/10 still, fun game with lots to do, but its just too bland, boring, repetitive and writing and dialog, theres too much of it and its boring.

Fortunately I am not native english speaker so i keep subtitles on and just skip almost all dialog. See text they speak, accept mission, follow arrows, google if you are lost

Well still had fun for while, but this wont be my game for modding, propably going back to FO4 and Skyrim soon.

[Wandering_Mania]

I think this vid really explains it all pretty well:

 

[DocClox]

1 hour ago, Wandering_Mania said:

I think this vid really explains it all pretty well:

 

Another tosspot influencer trying to talk down Starfield so they can get some rage clicks and score some points with Sony? Doesn't require much in the way of explanation.

[Wandering_Mania]

2 hours ago, DocClox said:

Another tosspot influencer trying to talk down Starfield so they can get some rage clicks and score some points with Sony? Doesn't require much in the way of explanation.

Well, you have every right to that opinion; But I'm just going to have to disagree with it. Because I 100% agree with almost everything said in that video.

The stuff said about FO4 I don't agree with, because I kinda like FO4. And the stuff said about New Vegas being 'the best', well I had non-stop crashing issues with it myself, so it weren't all that great in my opinion. But all the things said about Starfield, I agree with wholeheartedly.

 

But that's the thing about any form of entertainment, some like one thing, others like another thing. Some think T.V./Movies are the best, and follow random strangers home to call them "lowlife scumbags" because they play video games*; And others enjoy those video games, while barely paying any attention to T.V. and Movies. 'Free Will' is a funny thing ain't it?

 

*Yes, I have actually had this happen to me. Suffice to say I reported the dude for it, and the police seemingly already had a file on him, and told me plain that: "It wasn't the first time he's done something like that".

[Z0mBieP00Nani]

On 10/4/2023 at 4:17 PM, Miauzi said:

 

Just look at the car from S.L.U.T. - the mod that makes you a "pony delivery express".

I tried it out for a while - because I wanted to include it as a BDSM or fetish mod in my "Isekai" story.

Due to the factually non-existent driving behaviour of the car (which you pull as a pony) - I discarded the idea....

...and by the way I found the hints to the problems with "rolling wheels

in StarField you can find circular fields with a "rolling" irrigation system ... but always standing

but they wanted to stay with their old "engine" ... so there will be no rover for planetary exploration ... who wants to see and use something like that -> "Elite"

 

  Hide contents

 

 

 A rover like this would be awesome.

[Miauzi]

Vor 54 Minuten sagte Z0mBieP00Nani:

So ein Rover wäre großartig.

 

Yup - but then "Bugdesta" would have to completely change their programmers ... because how can it be that a small group of "amateurs" managed to implement actually functioning vehicles for Fallout-NV in their spare time ... but the profit-making company with a three-digit million budget in "StarField" - which in fact has the same "engine" - did not?

(this is exactly what the liar Mr. Todd H. wants to distract from in his stories).