Today we’ll be going over the different approaches to RPG choices and consequences of Baldur’s Gate 3 and Starfield.
Check out the Article Featured in the Video:
https://www.ign.com/articles/ex-skyrim-developer-explains-the-key-difference-between-bethesda-games-and-baldurs-gate-3
#baldursgate3 #starfield #rurikhan
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Hahaha i really thought about it and i can't really give the edge to Starfield in any area .
Starfield"it just works"Todd(the bot)
Baldur's Gate 3"we make it work through hard work"Larian
Also for people that want to play a solid space game, in my opinion, probably one of the best ever made with fantastic characters, deep and emotional story, and meaningful choices in both main missions and a lot of side missions, look no further then Mass Effect trilogy
"My experience with the game was fairly good" why you lying, stop lying.
I love both of them but I think Bethesda world is more interesting because for understanding how the universe works you have to search secrets. The game doesn’t tell you.When you finds them yourself you feel like you are part of the world like it’s your home
The problem with locking off content, is that, not often that equates to just minus content, for some quests you need to branch that quest and weave its new narrative into the quests you are already doing, and for those quests that are going to be fully locked, you need to create new quests, so the game doesn't fell extremely short because part of the content got locked because of a decision you made, you need some headroom for quests, so you make new ones, and if some of those quests can be locked as well based on a decision, the cycle will repeat itself. It's why games like BG3 has SO MUCH content, because they're always having to account for the content you can miss. Starfield on the other hand don't have that, in fact it has worse, thanks to its heavily reliance on procedural generation for its world, most of the content is repeated and repacked across all the 1000 planets.
Starfield: 6/10
Bg3: 10/10
Whys anyone even contesting the two?
Biggest issue I have with Bethesda games: every character I start plays the same. In BG3 NPC's react differently when I play as a drow.
Man I think I really need to buy baldur,s gate 3, I just hate spinning camera options but that is my own weird quirk I need to get over
Awesome video, I did think it was weird I could be an arch mage despite having no intelligence and only a novice spell
Go the Larian way! You can kill a child obsessed lady in act 1 and totally axe her act 3 story and that's awesome. We want surprises over the ability to do everything in one playthrough. Phil Spencer wants people to play SF for a decade but didn't give us any reasons to play it more than once or twice and after the reviews and commentaries there's little reason to even give it a first try although I will at some point when I run out of better new games to play. I'm still fixated on BG3 and Warhammer: Rogue Trader comes out tomorrow and will prolly be my new obsession.
I loved being the sentient wheel of cheese and the cheezy person who did it.
The "older" (and by "older", I mean before TESIV: Oblivion, so Morrowind, Daggerfall, and Arena), Bethesda's games actually locked the players out of content depending on their choices. In Morrowind, for example, you could join the Fighters' Guild and the Mages' Guild, but the guilds' questlines eventually conflict and you would have to make a choice. It was this way for many of the factions. The player could also fail the main quest if they failed to do something in time or killed an NPC essential to the main quest. "Essential" wasn't immortal in the games before Oblivion. The player could kill anyone. I wish Bethesda would return to this design; it really frustrated me that nearly all named NPCs were immortal in Starfield.
That said, Bethesda has one thing you can't do in Baldur's Gate 3. In Bethesda games, the player can completely ignore the main quest. The game tells the player they're the "chosen one" and the destined savior of the world, but the the player can just wander off and never touch the main quest. In BG3, you can only progress by completing story events.Sometimes, I don't want to be the protagonist. Sometimes, I wish only to wander off into the world and explore. The freedom to explore has always been the reason to play Bethesda games.
Edit: If you couldn't enjoy Skyrim because of the combat, you would be put off Morrowind really quick… However, perhaps you should consider giving it a try, simply to experience the pinnacle of Bethesda writing and world building? 😉 The writing of Bethesda's newer games do not compare to Morrowind.
You sound native to me. Except when you said "Ei" instead of "Hey". Ei is from portuguese I guess.
I like BG3 when it comes to this. I lost a main character super early and a didn’t get to another NPC in time and missed their whole quest line. This makes me want to play it a million times
As someone who loves Bethesda games, and loved starfield. I appreciate your commentary and fairness when assessing each game. I can’t wait to try BG3 on Xbox soon
Good video Rui, here’s my take on it as someone whose played all Bethesda games and I have 2 Full playthroughs of BG3 and many other playthroughs in other CRPGs. BG3 is an amazing game for many reasons, but you nailed it in the fact that it’s that choices actually matter and can lead to some long-lasting interesting story beats and interactions. To me the thing that matters is what is the intent behind the game’s choices. Think about other RPG’s like Final Fantasy or The tales series, these are telling a story while having RPG elements, allowing you to see all the content (in most cases).
I bring these up because the big failing of Starfield to me and what spoiled it (again for me at least), is it is pretending to give you a choice, then hand waving it away to tell the story. This aspect of branching dialogue not mattering has gotten worse and worse with each Bethesda release (I don’t count FO:NV since it was Obsidian and amazing). I would rather they drop the branching dialogue and illusion of choice and just tell the story they want to tell, if they did that, I’d at least respect them more for it. I had other problems with Star field but that’s another conversation entirely.
So back around to BG3, as you read, they themselves have said that they wanted every choice possible to play out in a way that made since even if only 5 people saw it at the end of the day. This was their intent from the start, and they nailed it. That on top of that an above average narrative, amazing core gameplay (and translation from DnD rule set) and amazing after launch support knocks it out of the park for me.
So to wrap it up, I think both can be valid, and enjoyable but don’t try to have branching narrative choices and not deliver on branching narrative, and especially don’t sell the game that way to people. That’s Starfield’s big failure to me, it pretends to be one thing and then it’s not.
I'm totally on the same level as you in terms of Elite Dangerous lol. Man i just want to walk around INSIDE my krait. Love that game. Have a LOT of hours in that game
Starfield had choice and consequences?
funny thing is that Bethesda had a different approach in the olden times. in Morrowind you couldn't join all the factions. some guilds had conflicts between themselves. you would also need to lvl up specific skills and stats to be able to joing and progress inside the guild.
not sure why they decided to complete drop that approach in Oblivion and beyond. it was always immersion breaking for me to have my two-hander wielding warrior who cast cast the Light spell become the archmage.
It is those open-ended sandbox games like No Man's Sky, where I have over 2000 hours, that I find myself still playing. (NMS is truly an open-ended game with no ending.) I won't replay/restart any game from the beginning. The most I've ever done is create a save point in case one choice doesn't work out, which is far from a complete redo. The inability to experience the majority of a game in something like BG3 if you make certain choices is why I have never bought them. I prefer the Bethesda approach were no matter what I do, I can experience a majority of the content in one playthrough, and I can continue to play in the sandbox for as long as I want without starting over. For non-sandbox games I loved Mass Effect 1-3 because they were well done, and I got to experience the entire story in one play through. I did recently replay them when the 4K remastered versions came out (I only play games on PC and wanted to experience a 4K ME playthrough).
Don't think the issue was with Bethesda replying to comments on Steam, it was more about the way they replied, as in, it seemed more AI generated and they kinda blanket bombed the comments with what was effectively a template.
BG3 playtime ~800hrs (rookie numbers I know)
Starfield playtime ~40mins (about as long as it takes to get to character creation and create a fairly decent one)
You told a god to pound sand, the god pounded you, then Gale pounded the god.
Pretty sure nobody is mad at Bethesda for just responding to reviews on steam in general. They’re mad about what they said in their responses, most of which boiled down to either “nuh uh” (in response to criticisms of the game feeling big but shallow) or “you’re playing the game wrong.”
Ffs one response to someone criticizing the amount of barren planets with nothing to find on them was “Well the astronauts who landed on the moon irl didn’t find anything and they weren’t bored” which is extremely tone deaf.
This! When i played dragon quest last week, it felt like none of my actions seemed to have any consequences, it felt like i had no freedom to make choices, so i threw the game in the dust bin and wished Japan didnt exist. Im a gamer with opinions.
I'm honestly surprised that Skyrim has been around for so long. I left Skyrim a long time ago. I keep forgetting to get Baulder's Gate 3 😅
Want to go and date Karlach. Lol
I’ve never had a gaming experience like I’ve had with BG3. I have 300hrs and have not completed the game. I have 4 different playthroughs at various points in the game all taking different approaches. I wonder if many are in my position with not completing.
I didn’t get the impression that people were mad about Bethesda replying to reviews, but the content of their replies. They were basically reading the same script on repeat and telling people their experiences were not accurate. Like with the “the astronauts weren’t bored on the moon” line and several others like that one.
Comparing starfield and BG3 is like comparing horses to typewriters. They aren't the same animal.
I love Starfield after 500 hours and I'll probably never play BG3. Also I love steak but I'll never eat sushi. Not that I'm saying any of them are better. Just some aren't to my taste. As a polished full content game BG3 is probably a way better product than SF but SF is the kind of game I enjoy.
I don't mind gamers trashing it. Maybe it'll cause Bethesda to fix some stuff, add some stuff or change some stuff. I doubt it but it's worth a shot.
However these continued comparisons between SF and BG3 are just irrelevant to the point of being stupid or just click bait.
Other than bugs or costs there's almost nothing similar between the two games.
I do appreciate Bethesda having their feet held to the fire tho. Some of the mechanics, and other stuff should just embarrass whoever designed them.
Personally prefer the BG3 approach for obvious reasons, but doesn't mean I dislike the Starfield/Bethesda approach. That said, it could've been done better IMO. If they want players to have the option to experience everything in one playthrough, they have to make it make sense. Don't pretend that your choices actually matter, make them independent of each other.
Take the BOTW/TOTK approach: Your choice is whether to reclaim each and every divine beast, reclaim just some of them, and in whatever order you want, or none at all. The consequence is that only those you reclaimed will help in the Calamity Ganon battle. That's a better implementation of the independent choices that can all be chosen in one playthrough.
I can’t say I have a preference. I do have the completionist mindset for many games, enjoying collectothons. At the same time playing a game with choices is a lot of fun too, because role playing a character and getting different experiences is great, especially when you have friends to compare with.
Though, when it comes to no choice games, I much prefer the approaches in FF16 and God of War rather than anything Bethesda. Soulsborne and Soulslikes have aspects from both of these approaches, and I adore those games too
I haven't played Starfield yet, but another big game from this year that I played to completion was Zelda Tears of the Kingdom, and even though I absolutely enjoyed my time playing it, I felt I had NO desire whatsoever to replay it again, and I think I understand why I felt this way especially after playing BG3. It has gotten to the point where I, and many other gamers, are sick of truly open world maps and don't see games with them as a selling point anymore. BG3 is not a truly open world perse, as the game is divided into 3 distinct acts one can't backtrack on, so you feel like you really have to think about the choices you make before proceeding with the story, and the surface of the maps themselves aren't 100% explorable unlike TotK, where you can literally move or swim or climb like 99% of the entire surface in the game, but at the same time I feel these restrictions are what make BG3 work so well.
The variety that is given to player choice and discovery truly focuses on quality over quantity and I feel there isn't too much bloat regarding the items and ingredients you find in the game, unlike TotK. I think Larian knew what they were doing when they made it so there was a limited amount of space players could actually explore as it helps one stay focused on things that actually matter when traversing and not feel like it's mostly empty boring space. And hell, just the fact that almost every NPC you interact with has fully-voiced dialogue and even a compelling backstory and developed personalities (for some more than others) makes it all the more immersive.
Huge expansive fully explorable open worlds mean shit when 90% of them are nothing but empty space where 90% of what you do is resource gathering and most of the traversal is utterly uneventful. I wanted to replay BG3 immediately after finishing it with a different character and choices whereas TotK made me not want to touch it again after finishing it because doing almost everything in the game feels like a chore more than anything and the way they treated the narrative and lore felt pretty disppointing. And I get the feeling this is the same problem that Starfield has except to an even greater extent from the impression that I've gotten from people who played it.
Having more consequences gives a game replay value, so I'll always prefer that over games like Starfield that allow you to do everything on one playthrough.
Now if they'd just put out a physical edition of BG3, I'll actually buy it…
I truly think both games have their place.
People forget people struggle with endless options.
Something like Starfield gives people like that the chance to experience a narrative with some choice that they can complete.
On the other side people like the DnD approach.
There’s a reason DnD for as popular as it is with its community it’s still niche.
But if every game is the same. Shit will get stale.
I like both ways, but I usually prefer the way BG3 does it due to adding more replayability. However, i hate scripted npc deaths with no ways to prevent them without mods. Both BG3 and Bethesda games have this and i hate it. Dialog choices (and other actions) should always allow me to either prevent or cause certain outcomes. That's the whole point of having high charisma and throwing dice IMO.
Starfield was God awful, the story was beyond boring. Characters are like nothing, like rice puffs.
The only people saying they prefer starfield are the ones who haven't played baldurs gate. 🤷♀️
I put 350+ hours in Bgs 3 and sadly it is just woke garbage. Characters trying to sleep with you constantly even though you just met for 5 minutes is not good writings sorry not sorry. All the women being warriors and all the guys being mages (coincidence? I think not.) The CEO saying that the Upper City would be fully explorable two weeks before release just for it to be cut on release yeah nah, Larian is scum just like every other trash such as Blizzard and EA.
I am fine with consequences of choice, as long as the game rules/mechanics make it clear what you can and what you can't do. I don't want to lose an opportunity or the time i've invested, just because the game decided to "gotcha!" me.
Forgot to talk to an NPC you had no clue had anything to do with this? Too bad, better start a new character.
Didn't hit this random rock during this rare blue moon event? Well, i guess you don't deserve this item/new area/quest opition.
Secrets, Factions, impacting choices, classes, etc… should matter, but not to the point of not respecting your time. I have not seen a game which provides a balanced experience, when it comes to cosequences. Most of the time when developers try it, it feels like it doesn't matter or almost as a softlock.
Starfield should be pulled from shelves, refunded and remade. But I know this would never happen but hey will get a SE edition in around 4 years. Then the anniversary edition around 10 years. So in around 15 more years we will have a majority, of highly needed fixes. AI fixes and no more barren cosmos like fallout 4 . Leading us to a game we can finally play.
But thats also the issue of becoming the head/leader of everything. In older Elder Scrolls and fallout games you couldn't do this and would gain better reputation with you guild or group and their allies. But gain bad reputation with enemy guilds and groups and their allies. Then game skyrim and the wanted to let you be the all power head of everything except what most people wanted. Which was high king and in return made the game guilds much more boring and less immersive. Also it's important to note that skyrim wouldn't be what it is or accomplished without its molders who do amazing work. Wanna play dark souls in skyrim you can, witcher yep along with many crazy changes and switches. Also the graphical upgrade mods easily keep it from being outdated the last 12 years.
I very much disagree with Bethesdas behavior regarding negative reviews. " You are bored ? No you are not !" Is pathetic. I see indi developer reacting to negative reviews, but thats mostly " oh wenplan more content in that space. Maby revisit that area in a view month. " And not " well its empty, but the moon is empty and was the Apollo crew bored !? " Like fuck you Tod ! They were the first to touch the surface of themoin, in very dangerously simple tech. Iam sitting on a PC staring at procedual generated nothingness !
I would have never thought english wasn't your first language.