Comment on Todd Howard asked on-air why Bethesda didn't optimise Starfield for PC: 'We did [...] you may need to upgrade your PC'

hal_5700X@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

• Edgelord_Of_Tomorrow@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Exactly this. It was only two generations ago when idTech was an open world engine, id can and have made it to do whatever they want and to suggest that despite Bethesda money (let alone MICROSOFT money) id couldn’t make a better engine with similar development workflows as Creation is just dishonest to suggest.

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  • Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    It’s a shame idTech is no longer released publicly. It would’ve been amazing to see what people could do with the beast of an engine that powered DOOM Eternal, especially modders.

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  • NuPNuA@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    I assume you’re talking about Rage, which had an open world map, but no where near the level of simulation systems as a Bethesda game. In fact I remember back at the time most of us saying the map was pointless as it was just a way to travel between levels with nothing to do in it.

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    • peppersky@feddit.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      There are no “levels of simulation systems” in Starfield. NPCs don’t even have schedules in this game, they literally just stand around in the same spot 24/7.

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      • NuPNuA@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        It’s still keeping track of lots of variables across a big play space at any time regardless of NPC schedules.

        They tried that once with Oblivion and clearly it didn’t add enough to the game and players experience to return to.

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    • Edgelord_Of_Tomorrow@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Starfield has less simulation than Fallout 4, it just has more (mostly empty) maps.

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  • deranger@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    You are completely talking out of your ass.

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• NuPNuA@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  You realise custom engines are built for specific game types right? iD Tech is great for creating high fedelity FPS games with linear levels and little environment interactivity. That’s not what Bethesda make though.

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  • Kolanaki@yiffit.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    They could do everything they usually do but better if they used Unreal. They don’t need a custom engine.

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    • NuPNuA@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      As far as I know, Bethesda are unusual in modern Devs in that they have a small team for the size of game they make, but they have strong retention of staff so have huge amounts of institutional knowledge about how they do things. Shifting to a new engine would basically mean starting from scratch on a company level. Unlike Ubisoft or Activison, they can’t just throw several thousend Devs at a game to brute force the development either.

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      • rambaroo@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        But that’s their biggest problem. There’s no reason for them to have a small unchanging team. It’s very very obvious that they never get an influx of new ideas. Starfield feels like it was made in 2016 and the optimization effort is comically bad. The writing is still mostly boring and naive. I could go on. It’s not a bad game at all but it could be so much better if Bethesda execs weren’t greedy cheapasses.

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• whats_a_refoogee@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  ID tech is nowhere near flexible enough for something like Starfield or even Skyrim. It’s partially the reason why it’s so efficient. It simply isn’t fit for the task.

  And the Bethesda developers are intimately familiar with Creation Engine, achieving the same level of productivity with something new will take a long time. Switching the engine is not an easy thing.

  Not to say that Creation Engine isn’t a cumbersome mess. It has pretty awful performance, stability and is full of bugs, but on the other hand it’s extremely flexible which has allowed its games to have massive mod communities.

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  • rambaroo@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    If Bethesda can’t take the time to do it then who can? People act like they’re some small time developer but they’re not. They simply refuse to expand their dev team to do things like a redesign.

    Creation engine is not going to hold up well for another 6 years, there’s no way their cell loading system will be considered acceptable by the time ES6 comes out. The amount of loading screens in Starfield is insane for a modern game. This company needs new talent badly.

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• vagrantprodigy@lemmy.whynotdrs.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  I know they don’t want to switch, but it would be worth it to make the swap to something like unreal, even if it takes a few years of customization to get the open world stuff right. Creation Engine just feels so old.

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