Starfield by Bethesda -- PC and Xbox exclusive -- 09/06/23

It really, really isn’t.

Agreed. It sometimes feels futile arguing those things though. I should add that it’s fair to say that leveling up in D&D is generally all about becoming better at combat. But one does not have to follow the other.

Fair point, but then you could technically say all RPG’s are driven by death loops, it’s just a variance on that timeline, right? But I feel like there is a distinct difference between a Bethesda RPG and Dark Souls style gaming. There are hard RPGs, nothing wrong with that. There are some very realistic RPGs, nothing wrong with that either.

I don’t think Bethesda will rock the boat here and go TOO far in either of those directions with this new offering. Maybe we’ll get a difficulty setting. Maybe.

The Loki thread is over there, sir, in the TV subforum. ;-)

EDIT: On topic, I have no problem with some fuller “life sim” mechanics like eating and such, but I also feel like it’s nice to have a toggle, as plenty of people don’t want to be bothered with that. Is that what we mean by hardcore?

I would hope, yep. I think several of us here added that stuff as mods. I will say I overdid it a couple of playthroughs and ended up removing some of it. The eating/cooking/weather mods were fun. The freezing/lifedraining weather, not as much. I mean, it was in Skyrim, so you never really got away from the weather.

Relayer was implying that Morrowind was hardcore and Oblivion onward were not. I’m not sure what part of Morrowind I would consider hardcore. Maybe the more liberal magic system that broke the balance of the game and made the player super-strong? I know shopkeepers never left their posts, they stayed in their shops 24/7, I think. They added schedules for them in Oblivion. I’m pretty sure you didn’t have to eat or drink in Morrowind. Maybe the non-fun combat? If it’s more fun, has more tactile feedback, it’s less hardcore?

The quest markers were mentioned – or lack thereof, really – as being “hardcore.” I feel like there has to be a happy medium there, because I don’t want to fly completely blind in an open world like Skyrim’s, either. But I understand not necessarily having “HEY, WALK TO THIS VERY SPOT AND TALK TO THIS VERY PERSON.”

True. Very valid. The quest markers were very non-hardcore!

Morrowind has my favorite journal system of all time. No quest markers, but every entry in your journal was written like an actual journal entry (Today I met with so-and-so…) , and reading those entries would give you everything you needed to know about where to go (he says I need to cross the bridge out of town and follow the road south until I see a small camp…). I feel it struck the perfect balance of immersion and functionality. My only gripe at the time was that it could have been better-organized (every entry was in timestamp order, meaning sometimes your quest milestones could be pages apart), but I really didn’t even mind needing to flip back and forth through pages to catch myself up. I would love for an immersive RPG to do that again.

Oh gosh I forgot about that but YESSSS. The journal in Morrowind was wonderful.

I mean a perfect system would allow some toggles, right? Maybe 3 settings. “No markers on the map, journal descriptions only” to maybe something pointing you in the general direction, but not EXPLICITLY laying everything out for you, to the traditional “Arrow pointing at the exact person/chest/item/location you’re supposed to interact with.”

The journal was great in Morrowind, to a point. But when I tried returning to the game after a few months (which I do a lot with Elder Scrolls games), I couldn’t really make as much sense of it as the systems in future games.

Man, it’s SO HARD to put a game down for a bit and then come back to it. Am I just getting older?

I popped into the Kingdom Come: Deliverance thread yesterday and thought “Man, I really liked that game and I never finished it. I should dive back in!” It’s been like a year. I couldn’t remember how to draw and sheathe my sword or WHAT THE HELL was going on.

Games need an “I haven’t played for a while, please recap what’s going on” function. A bit of “Previously on…” at the beginning of every show, coupled with “Here’s your basic functions.”

I do that constantly. There are games where I have played the first half a half-dozen times without ever seeing the backend.

As a consequence, I just don’t put games down until they’re done. I will never finish it otherwise. I mean, unless I’m totally sick of it.

Oddly enough, often Bethesda games are exceptions to this. They’re quite often just too damn big for me to just power through. I often have to take little vacations from the games or I’ll burn out. I enjoy playing them, they’re just so damned huge.

I’ve finished Skyrim twice but started it probably over a dozen times. I’ve finished the last fallout zero times but played several hundred hours of it. I just don’t like the main story.

I’m not talking about combat difficulty. I’m talking about:

  • Number of available skills cut down from Morrowind to Oblivion
  • They got rid of classes altogether
  • They got rid of certain weapons
  • Spellcrafting was gone by Skyrim
  • Factions meant something in Morrowind. You could only join ONE house. If I remember correctly, you could only become head of one guild.
  • Number of joinable factions/guilds decreased
  • They got rid of spell failure based on skill level
  • No map markers for quests in Morrowind

I also preferred the mage’s guild teleporters + silt striders as a way to get around as opposed to map fast travel.

Also, stats don’t seem to matter a whole lot after Morrowind. Block was entirely based on that skill’s level, for example.

And dialogue doesn’t seem to matter a whole lot, it’s not like there are many dialogue choices and they usually don’t affect anything. No point in raising Speech in Skyrim except to get lower prices from vendors which doesn’t matter.

Right. That’s what I meant.

We are in agreement, sir. Carry on!

These are good points. But bottom line is that I still played Morrowind the least out of all of them despite liking these things you listed. Because I was too powerful, money was meaningless, and combat was never fun.

No, Morrowind wasn’t necessarily hardcore. My point is that they streamlined the series after Morrowind to the point where it’s a little less classic RPG and more action game with some stats.

You had to eat in the later games? I don’t recall that. You could eat (for a very pointless HP gain), but it wasn’t a necessity.

I’m not saying some of the streamlining wasn’t an improvement. Just that they didn’t have to neuter the series’ soul completely. Sure, combat is more fun than it used to be, but I feel like the stats don’t really affect a whole lot, anymore.