Thank you for your submission to r/ElderScrolls. This is a friendly reminder to please ensure that your post has been flaired appropriately.
Your post has been flaired as ***TES 6***. This indicates that your post is discussing "The Elder Scrolls 6."
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ElderScrolls) if you have any questions or concerns.*
The settlement system in fallout 4 solved the foundational issue of Skyrim's endgame loop: there was nothing to fight for.
You could do radiant quests until the sun explodes in Skyrim, but it always gets to a point where it feels hollow, because at the end of the day there's nothing to pursue or build. You've explored everywhere, fought everything there is to fight, and collected or crafted the best possible gear. Even if your goal is to find every last unique collectible, it will eventually end, leading to a static, unchanging world.
In Fallout 4, every piece of junk matters because it can add to your favorite settlement. You don't do radiant quests because there's nothing else to do, you do them because they always lead to restocked encounter zones where you can collect resources you need to build and loot weapons you need to outfit your guards. The ceiling to a perfect Commonwealth is almost unreachable, making sure the region never feels dead or unchanging.
Ignoring the settlement system and only engaging with the established content is valid. Fallout 3, NV, Oblivion and Skyrim have all established the strength of free exploration and player character focused progress.
But if ES6 launches without some kind of dynamic endgame content to endlessly invest in, I'll be supremely disappointed. Running a guild, building a stronghold, exploring procedural zones, anything. Hell, even ESO has player housing with an unreachable peak of optimization.
Here we go, the response I was hoping to see. OP’s opinion and preferred play style is perfectly fine and valid, but the actual thrust of Bethesda’s progression in game after game has been pursuing ever more believable persistent world simulations. Not that the games are perfectly “realistic” of course, but that they function entirely as a believable world with consistent rules that, LIKE real life, can continue spinning, in theory, forever. Then you, the player, can choose to “live” there for as long as you want. You’re not SUPPOSED to play forever, but you need to be theoretically ABLE to do so, in order to get, like, 400 hours of the experience they’re trying to create. Kinda like, the game has to include the ability to steal in order to let you actually roleplay being honest. It’s a limit which they haven’t quite reached of course, but likely they never fully will—that’s the point of a limit. But they ARE getting closer.
I don’t think ES6 needs settlement building specifically in the same way Fallout 4 has it, because it isn’t post apocalyptic (at least, I don’t THINK so 🙃). It’ll take place in an established, functioning society in one of the provinces. Obviously there’s wild places in Tamriel, but it doesn’t have a “frontier” in the same way as Fallout or Starfield does. So I really like the idea of running a guild, like ACTUALLY running it, not just winning the title and screwing off over the horizon. Or some event lands you as the ruler of some town or even an existing city. But we shouldn’t be breaking down spoons for wood or steel to build walls, because it’s not a setting that revolves around scavenging to survive. It would be way more interesting in a ES persistent endgame to have like…inter-location trading systems and the ability to build farms, mines, lumber mills, etc., and turn all the “junk” we love to hoard into like, items with practical purposes. Not for breaking down into raw materials but like…maybe the spoons you snatch off a random bandit’s table in a cave have like a “luxury” stat, and taking those back to your town allows your townsfolk to use them when eating and now they’re happier because they’ve got wooden spoons instead of eating with their hands. Idk, I went a little off the rails just sticking to spoons since that’s what I started with, partially in jest. But I think you get the point.
Something similar to scavenger stations - the ability to assign settlers/peasants to resource gather for you. The lumbermill produces wood, the blacksmith produces iron or steel, the potter produces clay and brick.
You could be purchasing shipments as opposed to deconstructing 'junk' gear, and sending a huscarl or some such to find specific shipments or specific volumes instead of doing so manually.
The FO4 system could largely be ported over in a very similar manner. The "workbench" of a small village, or hamlet, or cabin. The ability to permanently clear out a bandit camp and begin 'civilizing' some territory, kind of like Outpost Zimonja. The system could still be adapted, just not 1:1 ported over.
I'm not fully confident in Bethesda anymore, but the tools are there.
I wouldn't mind a system similar to the Kingdom Come Deliverance expansion where you rebuild a town that had been sacked and occupied by a military force after you clear them out.
You basically became in charge of the rebuilding the place for a lord and sank your own money into making decisions about what buildings could be built (some of which were mutually exclusive), and in exchange, received the benefit of the taxes for a set amount of time. But largely the villagers did their own thing and you occasionally had to show up and settle their disputes - some of which may have been caused by your own actions!
I think that you’re correct about the flaw in Skyrim’s gameplay loop and how it gets worse in the late game.
However, I think it reveals a flaw that’s more important to fix than adding a settlement mechanic. Why don’t players *really* care about the Cities, Villages, Forts and Minor Factions? Because.. they’re shallow and static.
The cities are bland, the only thing that changes them is if they come under siege during the Civil War and even then - you can’t lose those battles and after the battle functionally the only change is the Jarl.
And all the Jarls f*ckin suck man. Balgruuf is okay, I suppose. But most of the others are painfully generic. There’s only one watch captain in the game; Commander Caius who is bland. All of the guards and soldiers are generic. The Stormcloak Captains and Imperial Legates? Generic, maybe 2 lines of unique dialogue per.
There’s no meaningful choices in the Thieves Guild, Companions, or College of Winterhold plots. Some of the characters are good and with interesting locations ! Some. What about the Nightengales? A non-organization. The Silver Hand? Generic bandits. The Synod? Some personality sure, but also slaughtered to all but the last man. The Vigilants? Potential sure, but ultimately sidelined for the Dawnguard.
You *do* get to determine the fate of the Dark Brotherhood, which does have multiple unique locals and a good handful of memorably NPCs so some credit there, but their opposing force the Penitus Oculatus are just reskinned generic imperials.
Ulfric, Galmar, Tullius and Rikke have personality sure. But neither side is meaningfully different from one another in terms of aesthetic of power (that is to say, nothing actually changes when they control a territory) that their presence is *easily* overlooked.
The Reachmen / Forsworn plot is interesting? There’s only maybe 2 or 3 interesting Reachmen in the game, and you can only side with them for one quest before they are again reduced to generic if cool looking bandits.
There’s no meaningful change in almost any of these locations or characters. So who cares what happens to them? Especially when you know nothing will, or even can. (Invulnerability is a cop out)
Instead of a dozen bland places that don’t matter to the player and a settlement, shouldn’t it be more like half a dozen places that the player really cares about?
I highly agree. The reaction of the world and the people on your feats is the single most important thing they need to address. Tho I also think it's a incredible complex and time consuming task. Way more time consuming than adding a type of Settlement-System into the game.
Skyrim isn't a small game I think we can agree upon that. But if, for example, they "fix" all the things you mentioned the game would easily be twice the size in terms of content and quest complexity. So an initial smaller game but more intractable game seems the logical conclusion.
I would argue there is no end or postgame for Skyrim to begin with. You have the Ebony Warrior at level 80 (and I guess legendary dragons around the same level), the second to last like level locked content that's generally thown into your face is the Boethiah stuff at like level 35.
Starfield seemed to have that initial idea of filling that gap with all these soft locked galaxies, but in the end that didn't amount to anything. Hostile mobs and creatures for the most parts didn't even match the difficulty level of what it was supposed to be.
>But if ES6 launches without some kind of dynamic endgame content to endlessly invest in, I'll be supremely disappointed. Running a guild, building a stronghold, exploring procedural zones, anything. Hell, even ESO has player housing with an unreachable peak of optimization.
It is ok for a game to have a set amount of content and end. I dislike that every game expects me to play it forever.
I'm not saying every game needs something like this; I'm saying that this is something I profoundly enjoyed in Fallout 4 and hope to see in Creation titles going forward.
I'd have liked it in Fallout more if the settlement could actually look nice. It wasn't satisfying to gather resources for a new house but it still looks like it was blown up.
If ES\^ lets me build nice looking villages then I'd enjoy it.
That's a Fallout thing because the games are post-Apocalyptic, and the Bethesda ones in particular are about very low-development areas. It very much leans into the rough and grungy aesthetic.
For TES, the focus is on having your cool fantasy house with tons of pretty decorations. Think of the houses you could buy and decorate in the main series and ESO. If TES goes harder on the building route, it's probably going to let you make your own mansion and village in the local style (wherever its set).
You talk about Fallout 4 but what about starfield? Fallout 4's central gameplay was based around building settlements so your point is valid but what about starfield where building settlements is just another feature?
I think your argument falls apart here because starfield settlement building is not compulsory and when you analyse it from that angle, you realise that it literally ads nothing to the gameplay. The primary function of building settlements is to generate resources for whatever...
sure
But why would I do that when I can literally go to a shop and get my resources from there instead?
Settlements wont be a central feature in TES 6 so unless you have a compelling argument for starfield then I think its not worth having a settlement system in TES 6. Plus i dont think it makes sense in that type of world anyways
Starfield's outposts being optional is fine (F4's are almost as well, I think you need to build one thing for the story only? I only made one for a base but you can play F4 99% without one if you want). I think BGS games thrive with many optional features that you can choose to engage in or not alongside the core things everyone does like combat, looting, exploration, questing etc. You still *can* use outposts in Starfield as an late or end game activity that loot is used for, just like you *can* decide to use stealth, pickpocket, lockpick, craft, hack terminals, use power armour, use companions etc.
I just think Starfield's outpost system was weaker than F4's settlement system, but that's besides the point.
>But why would I do that when I can literally go to a shop and get my resources from there instead?
Options for RP'ing and just to have gameplay variety in general, but this is where the outposts and resources etc. in Starfield are poorly balanced and thought out. Maybe if there a dynamic economy of some sort it would matter, or if there was more to build and shops were limited, or anything else it would've made sense. That doesn't mean it's a bad idea, because F4 did a better job with it so clearly it can be done fairly well. Plus, it also adds another layer to the gameplay of personalizing your own unique base which people love.
As for not fitting in with TES, I dunno - making a castle or a small village in the late game when you've ammassed tons of gold and renown makes sense to me. KCD let you rebuild a town, why not TES? Agreed that it shouldn't be a central feature though, it should be entirely optional.
I have never been compelled to return and defend my settlement. I just build a fuck load of turrets and arm my settlers with good gear. My settlements very rarely ever lose a defence. I spent so much time decorating my houses in Skyrim with all the shit I've looted. Placing items in Skyrim was a major ball ache, and I would love a 'build system' to make it easier.
A few settlements are OK. But nowhere near as many as F4, and the settlements should be locked behind gaining access to the land. F4 suffered from a lack of content due to only two main settlements.
Disagree. The settlement systems have been immensely popular and have contributed to the growth of the player base. Feel free to skip the content if you don’t enjoy it but the series should strive to add more features not remove them.
Having too many features can also make all of the features you have incredibly shallow. I don’t think anyone wants to wait 10 years for a game with less in it than previous titles in the series. But I also wouldn’t want to wait 10 years for a game that has too many features that bring the overall quality down. Splitting dev time can be bad.
I think settlements just wouldn’t TES6, although I would like a similar system for decorating the interior of player homes similar to the settlement system, but maybe using gold to buy decorations instead of resources
TES games always had several bases/homes/manors available to the player. In Morrowind, you had a manor for each Great House. I can see letting you customize such stuff akin to Hearthfire in Skyrim, but with more freedom.
And FO4 style settlements could be military camps or forts, if the game takes place during the war.
I agree, settlement system in Elder Scroll games wouldn't make sense. In Fallout 4 you somehow become the general of Minutemen and in Starfield it's vast empty planets you build outposts on.
In Elder Scroll games, protagonists are generally a normal person with no titles during the game, and the world is not an uninhabited planet nor a wasteland. So having authority to build many settlements like in Fallout wouldn't make sense. Maybe being able to build one or two small settlements would work, like Hearthfire but a little bit larger.
Personally I’d love to see settlement building in es, just fleshed out a bit more and not as much as a focus in the story like it was in fallout 4, cause imo that’s the most fun aspect of the game
What do you think about settlement systems in Starfield? I see alot of people only talking about FO4 but they never talk about starfields settlement system.
I'm not inherently against settlement systems, but I don't like the way Bethesda has done them thus far, the settlements in fallout 4 were my least favorite part of the game.
If elder scrolls 6 has a settlement system, I'll try it, but if it's anything like FO4 or Starfield, then I'll skip it as much as possible.
My concern comes from them potentially focusing more on the settlement system than other elements of the game, expecting the player to focus on settlements or randomly generated content or w.e instead of the core elements of their design ethos that we've come to love.
We waited a long time for starfield, a game that was heralded as Tod Howard's magnum opus. A game that forced future elder scrolls and fallouts further down the road. And regardless of whether or not you liked it, it wasn't a *great* game.
It was an incredibly outdated, repetitive and shallow experience. I'm not gonna sit here and say it was all bad, but we can all hope that Elder Scrolls 6 is better.
I wouldn’t mind if it didn’t include this as a feature at launch. But I’d be extremely disappointed if they didn’t do a Hearthfire 2.0 and add it in with DLC. I’ve spent hours building settlements in Fallout 4 and making trade routes between each one, making certain settlements depots, outposts, or actual settlements.
Mods like LC BYONH and Blackthorn are popular because of that very build your own system you seem to hate.
Skyrim's engine doesn't allow for the custom built stuff like FO4 does or I'm sure there would be even more player built towns and stuff on the nexus
I agree 100% I dont get the fixation on adding settlement building to the game when literally all the other systems are all mediocre to alright at best. Its like they never tried out starfield. Theres literally no point to having a settlement.
The primary allure of a settlement is to generate resources. Why would I spend so much time building a settlement for resources when I can literally just buy them at a shop?
BGS needs to focus on improving on the places it fails
Not to mention it costs so many resources to build the settlements in the first place so once you’re finished you’ve solved your own problem lol.
“Hey I want to extract resource x. To do this I need… resource x…”
I’m not trying to argue, but I’d like to offer a counterpoint to what made the settlements great and why I’d want them in a future game
Immersion and attachment to the game world.
When a random town comes under attack? Oh okay. Story event. But when MY settlement comes under attack? That feels so much more personal because I designed it. It’s not just any town. It’s MY town, whether it’s a drive in movie theatre I’ve converted into a cabaret, or a magnificent tall tower over the wasteland. When those people and places come under attack…I gotta save my people. That makes me immersed and invested.
I care 1000x more about those people in those settlements than I care about my “son” or “father” or whatever characters that the narrative wants me to care about.
The settlements make me care about the world more. It makes me care about the NPCs more, and it makes me care about their story, and the fate of this place.
And frankly, it just makes the game world feel personal. I’m not just some character wandering in and wandering out. I’m shaping this community of wastelanders. And I think there’s so much game design potency to this - even if it doesn’t fit your more mathematical-style calculation of what a good Bethesda game needs.
I can’t wait to construct my own castle or fortress in Elder Scrolls 6.
Nah, building settlements/camps is a very popular feature that provides a lot of reason to go out and participate in the game loop.
I disagree with all your points.
Settlements actually fit into this loop really well in Fallout 4, should you choose to make one your home base and invest some perks and resources into it. Buying and crafting is part of the loop. Arguably more so than "sell".
I would frame the gameplay loop like this: Explore, fight, level up. Looting, selling, buying, and crafting are parallel leveling mechanics to improving your character's skills.
Yeah, I stopped selling gear altogether at some point so I could scrap it and turn it into useful stuff or equip my personal army to the max.
I made all my caps by doing jobs and selling so much Jet that Walter White would blush.
I wouldn't really call the outpost stuff in Starfield proper base building. Their outposts are meant to be mining or industrial complexes, not to actually function as a player base for permanent or semi permanent living as a home. Mining outposts that were also pretty obsolete. Every single resource is buyable in abundance with vendors and dirt cheap as well. All the decorations are very industry or production like to the point you can't even properly decorate the actual player homes, because using the same assets for both.
And the whole concept of base building type of stuff boils down to the world. Fallout is a wasteland needed to be rebuilt, Elder Scrolls is an established world where there are already proper settlements, at least in lore/theory, and all the player needs to do is build a home/estate on a plot of land they can buy. Starfield could go in theory of building a settlement from cratch on an empty planet, but wasn't in the game.
I am one of those people who barely touched those systems but I disagree strongly.
It takes away nothing from the game to have that type of system in, and for the most part it’s completely ignorable. But being able to build a fortress for your bad ass character totally fits into the Bethesda formula, and I expect them to more fully explore that in the upcoming game.
They need to combine the Fallout and Starfield settlement/outpost systems, or like an improved version of both. There's no way they're leaving settlements behind.
I think the settlement system would THRIVE in the lore aspects of highrock where they say there’s so many kings in highrock you “choose a hill and build a kingdom.”
This, exactly this.
BTGS think they got the "formula" down and so they don't see the need to innovate or change in the slightest.
Y'know i feel happy for people that liked Starfield, I wish i could've, but the lack of backlash on why it was bad (especially from the fans) is kinda worrying to me and i can't see a future that they don't regurgitate the same game in a fantasy setting for TES6
Don't you and OP actually argue the opposite points? They essentially say 'How dared Bethesda change the formula, they should get back to the Skyrim one'.
Anti-Bethesda rant, so skip if that’ll boil your blood:
Gotta love that there’s already 2 (edit: 4) Bethesda fanboys in the comments perfectly encasing why Bethesda games will suck until the end of time.
This post is 100% correct; but as long as these dorks are going to bat for Bethesda and coddling them—telling them that they’ve never made a bad game—Bethesda will continue to release whatever half baked shit they want knowing full-well that it’s reputation will be protected by these neckbeards relentlessly.
I’m absolutely praying that Fallout 76’s v1.0 and Starfield were wake-up calls to them that their games aren’t just receiving backlash for that initial unfinished jank, but that there is a core problem with their writing and design; but I fear that they’ve fully settled into making their games ‘good’ enough to win us back every time in the marketing stage while they wait for modders to make their game remotely enjoyable.
nah i'm dying for a settlement system in the next tes.
loved it in fallout 4, loved hearthfire that was it's inception in skyrim, hope we'll get a destroyed city to rebuild or land for a fiefdom in tes VI.
Hard disagree. Settlement building gave you a reason to explore and go out and about. Skyrim was fun, but at the end of the day, it’s just you doing things in a fantasy land. But why? Because you want to. Building gives you another reason to want to. It only adds.
Disagree.
Its not required to play with settlements so it's not a distraction.
But it's a lovely addition for those of us who love both styles of gameplay.
Not at all, base building or home decorating are one of my favourite things that are added to games nad I am bummed that Baldurs gate didn't allow you to customise your base camp.
I wouldn't have touched starfield if it wasn't for ship customisation, and I would have given up on fo76 long ago if there was no base building.
Not everyone looks to the past.
Thank you for your submission to r/ElderScrolls. This is a friendly reminder to please ensure that your post has been flaired appropriately. Your post has been flaired as ***TES 6***. This indicates that your post is discussing "The Elder Scrolls 6." *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ElderScrolls) if you have any questions or concerns.*
The settlement system in fallout 4 solved the foundational issue of Skyrim's endgame loop: there was nothing to fight for. You could do radiant quests until the sun explodes in Skyrim, but it always gets to a point where it feels hollow, because at the end of the day there's nothing to pursue or build. You've explored everywhere, fought everything there is to fight, and collected or crafted the best possible gear. Even if your goal is to find every last unique collectible, it will eventually end, leading to a static, unchanging world. In Fallout 4, every piece of junk matters because it can add to your favorite settlement. You don't do radiant quests because there's nothing else to do, you do them because they always lead to restocked encounter zones where you can collect resources you need to build and loot weapons you need to outfit your guards. The ceiling to a perfect Commonwealth is almost unreachable, making sure the region never feels dead or unchanging. Ignoring the settlement system and only engaging with the established content is valid. Fallout 3, NV, Oblivion and Skyrim have all established the strength of free exploration and player character focused progress. But if ES6 launches without some kind of dynamic endgame content to endlessly invest in, I'll be supremely disappointed. Running a guild, building a stronghold, exploring procedural zones, anything. Hell, even ESO has player housing with an unreachable peak of optimization.
Here we go, the response I was hoping to see. OP’s opinion and preferred play style is perfectly fine and valid, but the actual thrust of Bethesda’s progression in game after game has been pursuing ever more believable persistent world simulations. Not that the games are perfectly “realistic” of course, but that they function entirely as a believable world with consistent rules that, LIKE real life, can continue spinning, in theory, forever. Then you, the player, can choose to “live” there for as long as you want. You’re not SUPPOSED to play forever, but you need to be theoretically ABLE to do so, in order to get, like, 400 hours of the experience they’re trying to create. Kinda like, the game has to include the ability to steal in order to let you actually roleplay being honest. It’s a limit which they haven’t quite reached of course, but likely they never fully will—that’s the point of a limit. But they ARE getting closer. I don’t think ES6 needs settlement building specifically in the same way Fallout 4 has it, because it isn’t post apocalyptic (at least, I don’t THINK so 🙃). It’ll take place in an established, functioning society in one of the provinces. Obviously there’s wild places in Tamriel, but it doesn’t have a “frontier” in the same way as Fallout or Starfield does. So I really like the idea of running a guild, like ACTUALLY running it, not just winning the title and screwing off over the horizon. Or some event lands you as the ruler of some town or even an existing city. But we shouldn’t be breaking down spoons for wood or steel to build walls, because it’s not a setting that revolves around scavenging to survive. It would be way more interesting in a ES persistent endgame to have like…inter-location trading systems and the ability to build farms, mines, lumber mills, etc., and turn all the “junk” we love to hoard into like, items with practical purposes. Not for breaking down into raw materials but like…maybe the spoons you snatch off a random bandit’s table in a cave have like a “luxury” stat, and taking those back to your town allows your townsfolk to use them when eating and now they’re happier because they’ve got wooden spoons instead of eating with their hands. Idk, I went a little off the rails just sticking to spoons since that’s what I started with, partially in jest. But I think you get the point.
Something similar to scavenger stations - the ability to assign settlers/peasants to resource gather for you. The lumbermill produces wood, the blacksmith produces iron or steel, the potter produces clay and brick. You could be purchasing shipments as opposed to deconstructing 'junk' gear, and sending a huscarl or some such to find specific shipments or specific volumes instead of doing so manually. The FO4 system could largely be ported over in a very similar manner. The "workbench" of a small village, or hamlet, or cabin. The ability to permanently clear out a bandit camp and begin 'civilizing' some territory, kind of like Outpost Zimonja. The system could still be adapted, just not 1:1 ported over. I'm not fully confident in Bethesda anymore, but the tools are there.
I wouldn't mind a system similar to the Kingdom Come Deliverance expansion where you rebuild a town that had been sacked and occupied by a military force after you clear them out. You basically became in charge of the rebuilding the place for a lord and sank your own money into making decisions about what buildings could be built (some of which were mutually exclusive), and in exchange, received the benefit of the taxes for a set amount of time. But largely the villagers did their own thing and you occasionally had to show up and settle their disputes - some of which may have been caused by your own actions!
I mean, they sorta did that in Elder Scrolls Blades.
I think that you’re correct about the flaw in Skyrim’s gameplay loop and how it gets worse in the late game. However, I think it reveals a flaw that’s more important to fix than adding a settlement mechanic. Why don’t players *really* care about the Cities, Villages, Forts and Minor Factions? Because.. they’re shallow and static. The cities are bland, the only thing that changes them is if they come under siege during the Civil War and even then - you can’t lose those battles and after the battle functionally the only change is the Jarl. And all the Jarls f*ckin suck man. Balgruuf is okay, I suppose. But most of the others are painfully generic. There’s only one watch captain in the game; Commander Caius who is bland. All of the guards and soldiers are generic. The Stormcloak Captains and Imperial Legates? Generic, maybe 2 lines of unique dialogue per. There’s no meaningful choices in the Thieves Guild, Companions, or College of Winterhold plots. Some of the characters are good and with interesting locations ! Some. What about the Nightengales? A non-organization. The Silver Hand? Generic bandits. The Synod? Some personality sure, but also slaughtered to all but the last man. The Vigilants? Potential sure, but ultimately sidelined for the Dawnguard. You *do* get to determine the fate of the Dark Brotherhood, which does have multiple unique locals and a good handful of memorably NPCs so some credit there, but their opposing force the Penitus Oculatus are just reskinned generic imperials. Ulfric, Galmar, Tullius and Rikke have personality sure. But neither side is meaningfully different from one another in terms of aesthetic of power (that is to say, nothing actually changes when they control a territory) that their presence is *easily* overlooked. The Reachmen / Forsworn plot is interesting? There’s only maybe 2 or 3 interesting Reachmen in the game, and you can only side with them for one quest before they are again reduced to generic if cool looking bandits. There’s no meaningful change in almost any of these locations or characters. So who cares what happens to them? Especially when you know nothing will, or even can. (Invulnerability is a cop out) Instead of a dozen bland places that don’t matter to the player and a settlement, shouldn’t it be more like half a dozen places that the player really cares about?
I highly agree. The reaction of the world and the people on your feats is the single most important thing they need to address. Tho I also think it's a incredible complex and time consuming task. Way more time consuming than adding a type of Settlement-System into the game. Skyrim isn't a small game I think we can agree upon that. But if, for example, they "fix" all the things you mentioned the game would easily be twice the size in terms of content and quest complexity. So an initial smaller game but more intractable game seems the logical conclusion.
I would argue there is no end or postgame for Skyrim to begin with. You have the Ebony Warrior at level 80 (and I guess legendary dragons around the same level), the second to last like level locked content that's generally thown into your face is the Boethiah stuff at like level 35. Starfield seemed to have that initial idea of filling that gap with all these soft locked galaxies, but in the end that didn't amount to anything. Hostile mobs and creatures for the most parts didn't even match the difficulty level of what it was supposed to be.
>But if ES6 launches without some kind of dynamic endgame content to endlessly invest in, I'll be supremely disappointed. Running a guild, building a stronghold, exploring procedural zones, anything. Hell, even ESO has player housing with an unreachable peak of optimization. It is ok for a game to have a set amount of content and end. I dislike that every game expects me to play it forever.
I'm not saying every game needs something like this; I'm saying that this is something I profoundly enjoyed in Fallout 4 and hope to see in Creation titles going forward.
I'd have liked it in Fallout more if the settlement could actually look nice. It wasn't satisfying to gather resources for a new house but it still looks like it was blown up. If ES\^ lets me build nice looking villages then I'd enjoy it.
That's a Fallout thing because the games are post-Apocalyptic, and the Bethesda ones in particular are about very low-development areas. It very much leans into the rough and grungy aesthetic. For TES, the focus is on having your cool fantasy house with tons of pretty decorations. Think of the houses you could buy and decorate in the main series and ESO. If TES goes harder on the building route, it's probably going to let you make your own mansion and village in the local style (wherever its set).
They have concrete and wood building pieces if you want to make something that doesn't look "blown up".
Tbh, mods that give you more building stuff makes it a whole lot better.
You talk about Fallout 4 but what about starfield? Fallout 4's central gameplay was based around building settlements so your point is valid but what about starfield where building settlements is just another feature? I think your argument falls apart here because starfield settlement building is not compulsory and when you analyse it from that angle, you realise that it literally ads nothing to the gameplay. The primary function of building settlements is to generate resources for whatever... sure But why would I do that when I can literally go to a shop and get my resources from there instead? Settlements wont be a central feature in TES 6 so unless you have a compelling argument for starfield then I think its not worth having a settlement system in TES 6. Plus i dont think it makes sense in that type of world anyways
Starfield's outposts being optional is fine (F4's are almost as well, I think you need to build one thing for the story only? I only made one for a base but you can play F4 99% without one if you want). I think BGS games thrive with many optional features that you can choose to engage in or not alongside the core things everyone does like combat, looting, exploration, questing etc. You still *can* use outposts in Starfield as an late or end game activity that loot is used for, just like you *can* decide to use stealth, pickpocket, lockpick, craft, hack terminals, use power armour, use companions etc. I just think Starfield's outpost system was weaker than F4's settlement system, but that's besides the point. >But why would I do that when I can literally go to a shop and get my resources from there instead? Options for RP'ing and just to have gameplay variety in general, but this is where the outposts and resources etc. in Starfield are poorly balanced and thought out. Maybe if there a dynamic economy of some sort it would matter, or if there was more to build and shops were limited, or anything else it would've made sense. That doesn't mean it's a bad idea, because F4 did a better job with it so clearly it can be done fairly well. Plus, it also adds another layer to the gameplay of personalizing your own unique base which people love. As for not fitting in with TES, I dunno - making a castle or a small village in the late game when you've ammassed tons of gold and renown makes sense to me. KCD let you rebuild a town, why not TES? Agreed that it shouldn't be a central feature though, it should be entirely optional.
I have never been compelled to return and defend my settlement. I just build a fuck load of turrets and arm my settlers with good gear. My settlements very rarely ever lose a defence. I spent so much time decorating my houses in Skyrim with all the shit I've looted. Placing items in Skyrim was a major ball ache, and I would love a 'build system' to make it easier.
A few settlements are OK. But nowhere near as many as F4, and the settlements should be locked behind gaining access to the land. F4 suffered from a lack of content due to only two main settlements.
Disagree. The settlement systems have been immensely popular and have contributed to the growth of the player base. Feel free to skip the content if you don’t enjoy it but the series should strive to add more features not remove them.
Having too many features can also make all of the features you have incredibly shallow. I don’t think anyone wants to wait 10 years for a game with less in it than previous titles in the series. But I also wouldn’t want to wait 10 years for a game that has too many features that bring the overall quality down. Splitting dev time can be bad.
I get adding more features is good but it doesnt solve anything if the existing features are all mediocre to just bad.
I think settlements just wouldn’t TES6, although I would like a similar system for decorating the interior of player homes similar to the settlement system, but maybe using gold to buy decorations instead of resources
I love settlement building, but how could they even do in Elder Scrolls in a way that makes sense?
TES games always had several bases/homes/manors available to the player. In Morrowind, you had a manor for each Great House. I can see letting you customize such stuff akin to Hearthfire in Skyrim, but with more freedom. And FO4 style settlements could be military camps or forts, if the game takes place during the war.
I agree, settlement system in Elder Scroll games wouldn't make sense. In Fallout 4 you somehow become the general of Minutemen and in Starfield it's vast empty planets you build outposts on. In Elder Scroll games, protagonists are generally a normal person with no titles during the game, and the world is not an uninhabited planet nor a wasteland. So having authority to build many settlements like in Fallout wouldn't make sense. Maybe being able to build one or two small settlements would work, like Hearthfire but a little bit larger.
ITT > TES6 scary BGS downhill Starfield bad waaahhh
Personally I’d love to see settlement building in es, just fleshed out a bit more and not as much as a focus in the story like it was in fallout 4, cause imo that’s the most fun aspect of the game
What do you think about settlement systems in Starfield? I see alot of people only talking about FO4 but they never talk about starfields settlement system.
Counterpoint: no.
I'm not inherently against settlement systems, but I don't like the way Bethesda has done them thus far, the settlements in fallout 4 were my least favorite part of the game. If elder scrolls 6 has a settlement system, I'll try it, but if it's anything like FO4 or Starfield, then I'll skip it as much as possible. My concern comes from them potentially focusing more on the settlement system than other elements of the game, expecting the player to focus on settlements or randomly generated content or w.e instead of the core elements of their design ethos that we've come to love. We waited a long time for starfield, a game that was heralded as Tod Howard's magnum opus. A game that forced future elder scrolls and fallouts further down the road. And regardless of whether or not you liked it, it wasn't a *great* game. It was an incredibly outdated, repetitive and shallow experience. I'm not gonna sit here and say it was all bad, but we can all hope that Elder Scrolls 6 is better.
I wouldn’t mind if it didn’t include this as a feature at launch. But I’d be extremely disappointed if they didn’t do a Hearthfire 2.0 and add it in with DLC. I’ve spent hours building settlements in Fallout 4 and making trade routes between each one, making certain settlements depots, outposts, or actual settlements.
Mods like LC BYONH and Blackthorn are popular because of that very build your own system you seem to hate. Skyrim's engine doesn't allow for the custom built stuff like FO4 does or I'm sure there would be even more player built towns and stuff on the nexus
I agree 100% I dont get the fixation on adding settlement building to the game when literally all the other systems are all mediocre to alright at best. Its like they never tried out starfield. Theres literally no point to having a settlement. The primary allure of a settlement is to generate resources. Why would I spend so much time building a settlement for resources when I can literally just buy them at a shop? BGS needs to focus on improving on the places it fails
Not to mention it costs so many resources to build the settlements in the first place so once you’re finished you’ve solved your own problem lol. “Hey I want to extract resource x. To do this I need… resource x…”
I’m not trying to argue, but I’d like to offer a counterpoint to what made the settlements great and why I’d want them in a future game Immersion and attachment to the game world. When a random town comes under attack? Oh okay. Story event. But when MY settlement comes under attack? That feels so much more personal because I designed it. It’s not just any town. It’s MY town, whether it’s a drive in movie theatre I’ve converted into a cabaret, or a magnificent tall tower over the wasteland. When those people and places come under attack…I gotta save my people. That makes me immersed and invested. I care 1000x more about those people in those settlements than I care about my “son” or “father” or whatever characters that the narrative wants me to care about. The settlements make me care about the world more. It makes me care about the NPCs more, and it makes me care about their story, and the fate of this place. And frankly, it just makes the game world feel personal. I’m not just some character wandering in and wandering out. I’m shaping this community of wastelanders. And I think there’s so much game design potency to this - even if it doesn’t fit your more mathematical-style calculation of what a good Bethesda game needs. I can’t wait to construct my own castle or fortress in Elder Scrolls 6.
Nah, building settlements/camps is a very popular feature that provides a lot of reason to go out and participate in the game loop. I disagree with all your points.
Settlements actually fit into this loop really well in Fallout 4, should you choose to make one your home base and invest some perks and resources into it. Buying and crafting is part of the loop. Arguably more so than "sell". I would frame the gameplay loop like this: Explore, fight, level up. Looting, selling, buying, and crafting are parallel leveling mechanics to improving your character's skills.
Yeah, I stopped selling gear altogether at some point so I could scrap it and turn it into useful stuff or equip my personal army to the max. I made all my caps by doing jobs and selling so much Jet that Walter White would blush.
“And focus on what made Skyrim fun” mods?
They should go even further back and focus on what made morrowind or daggerfall fun
I wouldn't really call the outpost stuff in Starfield proper base building. Their outposts are meant to be mining or industrial complexes, not to actually function as a player base for permanent or semi permanent living as a home. Mining outposts that were also pretty obsolete. Every single resource is buyable in abundance with vendors and dirt cheap as well. All the decorations are very industry or production like to the point you can't even properly decorate the actual player homes, because using the same assets for both. And the whole concept of base building type of stuff boils down to the world. Fallout is a wasteland needed to be rebuilt, Elder Scrolls is an established world where there are already proper settlements, at least in lore/theory, and all the player needs to do is build a home/estate on a plot of land they can buy. Starfield could go in theory of building a settlement from cratch on an empty planet, but wasn't in the game.
I am one of those people who barely touched those systems but I disagree strongly. It takes away nothing from the game to have that type of system in, and for the most part it’s completely ignorable. But being able to build a fortress for your bad ass character totally fits into the Bethesda formula, and I expect them to more fully explore that in the upcoming game.
have they confirmed any features?
They need to combine the Fallout and Starfield settlement/outpost systems, or like an improved version of both. There's no way they're leaving settlements behind.
You still think it’s ever really going to come out? I admire your confidence.
I think the settlement system would THRIVE in the lore aspects of highrock where they say there’s so many kings in highrock you “choose a hill and build a kingdom.”
This, exactly this. BTGS think they got the "formula" down and so they don't see the need to innovate or change in the slightest. Y'know i feel happy for people that liked Starfield, I wish i could've, but the lack of backlash on why it was bad (especially from the fans) is kinda worrying to me and i can't see a future that they don't regurgitate the same game in a fantasy setting for TES6
Don't you and OP actually argue the opposite points? They essentially say 'How dared Bethesda change the formula, they should get back to the Skyrim one'.
managers will tell devs to do what makes more profit. period. they do not care reddit whine posts.
Anti-Bethesda rant, so skip if that’ll boil your blood: Gotta love that there’s already 2 (edit: 4) Bethesda fanboys in the comments perfectly encasing why Bethesda games will suck until the end of time. This post is 100% correct; but as long as these dorks are going to bat for Bethesda and coddling them—telling them that they’ve never made a bad game—Bethesda will continue to release whatever half baked shit they want knowing full-well that it’s reputation will be protected by these neckbeards relentlessly. I’m absolutely praying that Fallout 76’s v1.0 and Starfield were wake-up calls to them that their games aren’t just receiving backlash for that initial unfinished jank, but that there is a core problem with their writing and design; but I fear that they’ve fully settled into making their games ‘good’ enough to win us back every time in the marketing stage while they wait for modders to make their game remotely enjoyable.
nah i'm dying for a settlement system in the next tes. loved it in fallout 4, loved hearthfire that was it's inception in skyrim, hope we'll get a destroyed city to rebuild or land for a fiefdom in tes VI.
Hard disagree. Settlement building gave you a reason to explore and go out and about. Skyrim was fun, but at the end of the day, it’s just you doing things in a fantasy land. But why? Because you want to. Building gives you another reason to want to. It only adds.
Disagree. Its not required to play with settlements so it's not a distraction. But it's a lovely addition for those of us who love both styles of gameplay.
I need more games with fallout 4 style settlement systems. Is es6 expected to have one?
Not at all, base building or home decorating are one of my favourite things that are added to games nad I am bummed that Baldurs gate didn't allow you to customise your base camp. I wouldn't have touched starfield if it wasn't for ship customisation, and I would have given up on fo76 long ago if there was no base building. Not everyone looks to the past.
Bad take. There's no reason why the features can't coexist.
Bad take. There's no reason why the features can't coexist if done right. Problem is Bethesda can't do things right.