How does Bethesda get away with everything they do wrong?

[Candy Cough]

Fallout 4 and Bethesda. MY. FUCKING. GOD. Not one day, not one FUCKING DAY without someone spamming fallout 4 news or anything else. And bethesda out of all of them seriously? I am going to assume Zenimax doesent care enough to give those developers a bitch slap since they make Zenimax enough money as is, but come on!

How the hell does Bethesda get away with their horrible games all the time? I am paying 60 Bucks for a game, I expect it to be somewhat original. 50% of the sounds used there are directly imported from Skyrim, many assets are models and/or textures from Skyrim, even the Lockpicking system is an exact copy with same sound, only difference is The graphics.

But how did you manage to create a game so massive, with so much shit to do, that it ruins the fucking game? I'd rather watch flies fuck, Id rather watch paint dry, I'd rather stick giant chopsticks in my fucking eyes than to play trough their shit. Let's not forget about the Quest bugs, because of conversation bugs, because of combat bugs. Bugs bugs bugs bugs bugs bugs, Buggy mac buggertons bughouse that's what you should called the piece of garbage you created. What about their praised games such as Skyrim and Morrowind? Morrowind had RNG styled combat. You could hit your enemy 100 times before it died.

I don't care when the game was made, who the fuck does this? Skyrim? Even worse when it comes to bugs. I Purchased fallout 4 to experience it before the 2 hour mark so I could refund the game. It's not the first time I had a game breaking bug. When talking, my character under multiple occasions just decided to step backwards and clip into a wall. Luckily I knew how to use the console command to get out but fucking seriously. When you pay 60 dollars for a game, you expect some Form of Originallity, A bug free game, and to the people saying "Well, all open world games has bugs" Give me a fucking break. Witcher 3? Battlefront 3? It's from EA; there you'd expect them to charge for bug fixes, but not even they are as crap as bethesda. Overwatch? It's in Beta, and it's already more polished and bugfree than any of the Bethesda titles.

Do bethesda not play trough their games? Do they just like release it when They're done with it? Or what is the problem? Do they say that they cant fix the bugs? I just frankly don't understand, and I am afraid, I have to say the most Overrated Developer goes to Fallout 4 without a doubt.

[NoiseTank13]

I can ask the same thing for Valve, or anything that has a strong fanbase.

[Manabomb]

While I'm not going to sit here and try to defend any AAA gaming company with their buggy releases, day 1 DLC and other nonsensical bullshit, I will say: What do you expect? In a gaming culture where the bottom line is the dollar bill and pleasing executives, "good enough to launch" is your polished product. Sure, that 60$ pays for any future updates that generally fix the game, but the staggering lack of effort put into a lot of titles (Starwars: Battlefront 2015 is a perfect example) begs the questions: Are AAA gaming companies bound to the absolute greed that comes with a capitalistic society? And is there a way for us as the consumer to break these developers away from the chains of the dollar and allow them to actually make a finished, polished product without having to wait 6+ months post launch?


Edit: Though I would like to mention, Bethesda does make up for releasing a half finished half assed product by allowing it to be completely moddable and release a creation kit for modding. Sure, that's like buying a half finished Lego Millennium Falcon for 60$ and telling you as the consumer to finish it before you can get the real experience, but it sure beats out titles that have 0 modding capability. Atleast in the past with Bethesda the consumer can actually do something about the game instead of bitch endlessly about it.

[Miyagie]

100 hours played, found 2-3 bugs and thats ok for a openworld game nothing gamebreaking.
Maybe you should watch some gamplay vids or reviews before you buy a game.

[zlygork]

few fanbases are as unrealistically critical as blizzard's fanbase. By that, I mean "X sucks/ is dying/ is gonna end soon" pessimistic remarks with no justification or argumentation

[Ghostile]

350 hours.
No game breaking bugs.
And about Morrowind, you wouldn't understand, you didn't know videogames at that age.

[antelope591]

Reading forums you would think Fallout 4 was the worst game of all time. In reality Ive already played it more than any other single player game in 2015 and still enjoying it. No matter what ppl will complain like crazy about a game, movie, whatever is released these days. The best policy is form your own opinion instead of going with the crowd.

[Wilian]

Morrowind had RNG styled combat. You could hit your enemy 100 times before it died.

Just no. Sure it had pretty awful melee system that relied on rolls rather than actions done (it's downfalls however I credit on poor animations than system itself because the take was very interesting and very much emphasised character rather than player. If it had proper parry/dodge animations I'm quite sure people would've not even noticed vs. swinging in empty air).

It's far from RNG though and your own choices matter a lot in what you can do. If you miss 100 swings in a row it just means you've utterly failed in your character build for that purpose.

[hrugner]

Do you want a lecture on "water cooler culture" and how playing AAA titles is part of non-gaming social interaction, or a lecture on how a large enough game offers many small niches for focused players to enjoy? Or did you just want to vent.

I have problems with Bethesda's games (many many problems really), but I enjoy them and understand their broad appeal.

[Candy Cough]

Problem is, Bethesda gets undeserved attention

EA releases a buggy game, OMG Worst company ever
Bethesda releases a buggy game, OMG best game ever! All games have bugs!

[Manabomb]

Problem is, Bethesda gets undeserved attention

EA releases a buggy game, OMG Worst company ever
Bethesda releases a buggy game, OMG best game ever! All games have bugs!

Oh fucking please, when Battlefield 4 released in 2013 people were praising it as game of the year while the rest of the shooter player base were laughing their asses off at a buggy, unfinished CPU whore of a game. Battlefield 4 was honestly the worst modern launch of ANY AAA FPS and it took EA over 6 months to even ACKNOWLEDGE there was a problem, let alone starting to fix it. EA gets the hate it does because they are a purely incompetent gaming company that makes pretty much all their money from releasing the Sims 2 with a new number after it.

At the very least, Bethesda actually tries.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Problem is, Bethesda gets undeserved attention

EA releases a buggy game, OMG Worst company ever
Bethesda releases a buggy game, OMG best game ever! All games have bugs!

After playing the buggy piece of crap that is new vegas on Win8.1 I have to say, yeah .. the multiple screen long bug sections on the wiki they never bothered fixing .. Bethesda gets away with a lot. Too much, that is sure as well. But it's still a difference if Bethesda sells you a complete 120 hour game, or EA selling you a roster update or worse an unfinished game with shit-loads of day one micro transactions in a full price title. Same with Shittyvison and Crappysoft, they usually outbrown EA even these days.

Bethesda also had a stellar E3 performance this year, which garnered them a lot of good will, where the others fucked up royally like usual.

[Deleted]

I can ask the same thing for Valve, or anything that has a strong fanbase.

I take it you havent visited forums, community boards or news posts about valve games recently? When they do something wrong, there is fucking uproar. As seen by the CSGO xmas update..People where almost outside valve HQ with pitchforks.

[WintersLegion]

After playing the buggy piece of crap that is new vegas on Win8.1 I have to say, yeah .. the multiple screen long bug sections on the wiki they never bothered fixing .. Bethesda gets away with a lot. Too much, that is sure as well. But it's still a difference if Bethesda sells you a complete 120 hour game, or EA selling you a roster update or worse an unfinished game with shit-loads of day one micro transactions in a full price title. Same with Shittyvison and Crappysoft, they usually outbrown EA even these days.

Bethesda also had a stellar E3 performance this year, which garnered them a lot of good will, where the others fucked up royally like usual.

Bethesda didn't make New Vegas that was a different company.

[Cooper]

While I'm not going to sit here and try to defend any AAA gaming company with their buggy releases, day 1 DLC and other nonsensical bullshit, I will say: What do you expect? In a gaming culture where the bottom line is the dollar bill and pleasing executives, "good enough to launch" is your polished product. Sure, that 60$ pays for any future updates that generally fix the game, but the staggering lack of effort put into a lot of titles (Starwars: Battlefront 2015 is a perfect example) begs the questions: Are AAA gaming companies bound to the absolute greed that comes with a capitalistic society? And is there a way for us as the consumer to break these developers away from the chains of the dollar and allow them to actually make a finished, polished product without having to wait 6+ months post launch?


Edit: Though I would like to mention, Bethesda does make up for releasing a half finished half assed product by allowing it to be completely moddable and release a creation kit for modding. Sure, that's like buying a half finished Lego Millennium Falcon for 60$ and telling you as the consumer to finish it before you can get the real experience, but it sure beats out titles that have 0 modding capability. Atleast in the past with Bethesda the consumer can actually do something about the game instead of bitch endlessly about it.

Video game consumers brought this on themselves by uncritically pre-purchasing, buying DLC, and pouring money into shady f2p game practices like lockboxes. It's the same reason the Blizzard store gets flashy new mounts while only mundane reskins are obtainable in-game in WoD.

If it didn't work, companies wouldn't do it. But it does work, and consumers have nobody to blame but themselves.

Which isn't to say that I approve of business practices subverting gameplay design, but the current state of the video game business wouldn't have happened if people had spent their money wisely, instead of mindlessly feeding their Id. The buck should've stopped sometime around BioWare's DLC shenanigans in Dragon Age, but nope. Consumers fell for it hook, line, and sinker, and now we have people dropping hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars on "gems" to refill their "Action points", or gambling on the miniscule chance of getting an item upgrade or new cosmetic skin, or whatever.

[Cosmic Janitor]

I take it you havent visited forums, community boards or news posts about valve games recently? When they do something wrong, there is fucking uproar. As seen by the CSGO xmas update..People where almost outside valve HQ with pitchforks.

The difference is that unless they release another Portal or make jokes about HL3, the majority of the internet tends to forget valve even still makes games. Not surprising, since they all swim in steam money these days .

[GennGreymane]

You would be really upset when you see how many assets are taken from older games

Witcher, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, GTA, the list goes on.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Bethesda didn't make New Vegas that was a different company.

They published it, they are responsible for Obsidian (they contracted them afaik) to fix their shit.

Edit: At least the gameplay bugs that are in the game since the day it released. The 8.1 issues are just shitty programming and their god awful engine, but these things happen when tech evolves - I can forgive them that. That half the quests villy nilly break though, nope that's on them.

[Kolvarg]

Fallout 4 and Bethesda.

Perhaps because your opinion is just that, and not plain truth in itself. While you think it's bad, a lot of people apparently think it's very good despite the bugs and "lack of originality". Who is right? No one. To each his own.

With that said, reusing assets/models/textures/sounds is not lack of originality, it's being smart. They're making a different yet similar game (both open world RPGs with relatively similar mechanics) on a slightly improved version of the same engine. If the lockpicking system works, why would they change it? Why would picking a standart lock in the TES universe be different or have a significantly different sound than in the Fallout Universe? Why would metal hitting metal sound different betwen the too? There's a line between innovating or being creative and plainly making something different just for the sake of it.

Bugs are just a part of Open World-ness. There aren't many open world simulation-ish games which don't have a considerable ammount of bugs, especially Beteshda ones, so it's hard to believe anyone would be fooled into thinking Fallout 4 is a pristine balls of polish.


In the end everyone has their taste. Everything you complained about can be found by reading some reviews or watching some gameplay footage, and you said it yourself you can get a refund even after playing for 2 hours, so what exactly is the problem? Why so mad?

Don't like it, don't play it, you didn't lose anything. No need to be a dick about it just because you didn't enjoy it and other people did =P

[Manabomb]

Video game consumers brought this on themselves by uncritically pre-purchasing, buying DLC, and pouring money into shady f2p game practices like lockboxes. It's the same reason the Blizzard store gets flashy new mounts while only mundane reskins are obtainable in-game in WoD.

If it didn't work, companies wouldn't do it. But it does work, and consumers have nobody to blame but themselves.

Which isn't to say that I approve of business practices subverting gameplay design, but the current state of the video game business wouldn't have happened if people had spent their money wisely, instead of mindlessly feeding their Id. The buck should've stopped sometime around BioWare's DLC shenanigans in Dragon Age, but nope. Consumers fell for it hook, line, and sinker, and now we have people dropping hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars on "gems" to refill their "Action points", or gambling on the miniscule chance of getting an item upgrade or new cosmetic skin, or whatever.

Then what we should really start thinking about is educating consumers. Fat chance on doing that though, teaching anyone anything without direct consent of the individual is worse than pulling teeth in the U.S.

It's almost to the point where teaching people something is almost as frowned upon as rape, especially with such a PC culture.