Bethesda: Save the Single Player games

It is true that when it comes to the games Bethesda publishes, they are predominantly single-player focused and don't succumb to the temptations of forced multiplayer and microtransactions, so I see where that arguement comes from.

However, it is also true that Bethesda has their own, shall we say... exclusive vices. Like constantly rereleasing Skyrim over and over again, without accounting for all the bugs that are still in it. Or all that Creation Club nonsense. And while they don't strictly apply the microtransaction model to their games, and lilkely never will to curry favor, they still have their sneaky alternative with how they price the CC content. Plus, you can see this video as message that shows they are still committed to the single player practice, but you can also see it as another feather in their cap to boost the ego. I wouldn't call them desperate per say - it was desperateness for mainstream appeal that put unnecessary multiplayer in Spec Ops: The Line, but they are definetly sneaky. I really hate how they insist the CC content is not paid mods.
 
Arnust said:
... New Vegas IS a sequel because while keeping most of the design changes from Fo3, it makes some approach changes to better suit the original school of design, and most of all, it's set in roughly the same region, you meet either the remnants, stragglers and what have become of those original factions. It follows that story, and I don't know how can you really then call Fo2 a sequel as well considering that it has about the same connection to the previous as NV has to 2 itself. Fo1 and Fo2 having almost the exact same gameplay as well, only slightly more polished and advanced.

It technically could be called a sequel to Fo3, when only looking at it from the gameplay aspect.
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FO3 is a Fallout spin-off—to be sure; while New Vegas is (as I think you put it) a kind of sequel to FO3; where it greatly polishes it up... but it's the same base matter: FO3. They just made something beautiful out of it.

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CT Phipps said:
When refutting, it's best to throw examples. Not that they don't exist but as recommendations.

:)
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- NioH
- Assasin's Creed Origins
- The Surge
- The Evil Within 2 (Nobody is mentioning it)
- ELEX
- Hollow Knight
- Divinity Original Sin 2 (parts coop too)
- Life Is Strange the new one
- Sonic Mania
- Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice
- The Escapists 2
- The Long Dark
- RUINER
- Heat Signature
- Starbound
- Stellaris 2.0 update
- Endless Space 2
- What Remains of Edith Finch
- NieR Automata
- Resident Evil 7
- Astroneer
- Civilization VI
- RimWorld
- Factorio
- Oxygen Not Included
- Dark Souls III
- State of Decay: YOSE
- A miriad of mods of existing SP games IE Enderal: The Shards of Order
- Mario & Rabbids Kingdom Battle
- Super Mario Oddysey
- TLoZ: Breath Of The Wild
- Many more for sure
- Most single player games from before 2017, you know

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That looks adorable in a weird way
 
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CT Phipps said:
I've literally put up the list twice in this thread already. People really don't read the rest of threads anymore, do they?
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If you are reffering to the games EA has published, I don't think the arguement is that multiplayer is ruining games. Rather it's that toxic service model, the urge for money, the microtransactions that are ruining the experience. The Battlefront games might have been fine on their own, but they've both been damned by buisness decisions. The first one had that ridicolous season pass price and the lack of a singleplayer mode. Then the sequel comes along and it's even worse; the lootbox model is tied directly into the progression system, meaning that its a long grind or payment up front, or it would have been, but since they've removed the option to pay, its still a long grind. And a few months into its life new players aren't going to be able to do anything because they will be going up against players with hundreds of hours put in to get a boatload of gameplay advantages.

You also mention the latest Deus Ex title. I'm not familiar with it, but if I recall correctly, that had an unnecessary multiplayer mode thrown in at the last moment to accomadate microtransactions. Or do I have that wrong? Regardless, the issue is similiar; unnecessary multplayer modes, or restricted progression systems are the symptons, but the root cause is the microtransations, the lootbox, the urge for more money that turns these titles sour.
 
D Borous said:
If you are reffering to the games EA has published, I don't think the arguement is that multiplayer is ruining games. Rather it's that toxic service model, the urge for money, the microtransactions that are ruining the experience. The Battlefront games might have been fine on their own, but they've both been damned by buisness decisions. The first one had that ridicolous season pass price and the lack of a singleplayer mode. Then the sequel comes along and it's even worse; the lootbox model is tied directly into the progression system, meaning that its a long grind or payment up front, or it would have been, but since they've removed the option to pay, its still a long grind. And a few months into its life new players aren't going to be able to do anything because they will be going up against players with hundreds of hours put in to get a boatload of gameplay advantages.

You also mention the latest Deus Ex title. I'm not familiar with it, but if I recall correctly, that had an unnecessary multiplayer mode thrown in at the last moment to accomadate microtransactions. Or do I have that wrong? Regardless, the issue is similiar; unnecessary multplayer modes, or restricted progression systems are the symptons, but the root cause is the microtransations, the lootbox, the urge for more money that turns these titles sour.
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You're not wrong.

The reason people hate multiplayer modes and were so terrified when CD_Projekt Red announced them isn't because they hate multiplayer but because so much of existing assets get diverted into the game and this causes the single player experience to be completely fucked up.

You're also right that it's designed to bilk the player as people believe people are more likely to pay for multiplayer material than they are for single player.

In Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, the issue was the fact they tacked on a wholly unnecessary multiplayer model that was a stylized game inside a Matrix-like environment unrelated to the game game then made a big paid for DLC to justify it.

The efforts to complete the "Breach Mode" caused the game to get divided into two parts which resulted in the single player campaign going from 12 hours to 8 hours with the game series going on "hiatus" because of poor fan response. It turned out no one played the Breach Mode (which was designed with microtransactions in mind) and complained about the short length and unfinished story of the SP.

We know the disaster of Assassins Creed: Unity where the multiplayer was massively focused on but they couldn't be bothered to make any of the Assassins women. It also took away from polishing the single player experience that had grotesque bugs and an uneven plot.

Grand Theft Auto V is the least problematic example of this as no one thinks GTAV isn't polished as hell. However, all future DLC they planned was dumped into the multiplayer experience and it's their big money maker now they aren't interested in working on any spin-offs or sequels at this time.

Same thing happened with the desire to create STAR WARS: THE OLD REPUBLIC as it basically sank any chance of KOTOR3 and almost ruined the Star Wars license as it was such a sink of resources.

There was a genuine horror story behind the already mediocre Homefront as they were designed for multiplayer then a SP campaign was tacked on, then no one gave a shit about the multiplayer versus the SP and the entire team was sacked. So they redesigned the next game with that in mind only for it to fail even more spectacularly.
 
Gizmojunk said:
FO3 is a Fallout spin-off—to be sure; while New Vegas is (as I think you put it) a kind of sequel to FO3; where it greatly polishes it up... but it's the same base matter: FO3. They just made something beautiful out of it.
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Well, Obsidian made an objectively a better game than anything came before or yet to come with F:NV, gamebryo engine or not, so statement discarded. New Vegas would be better game than F1 or 2 even on WL2(Unity) engine.
 
CT Phipps said:
I've literally put up the list twice in this thread already. People really don't read the rest of threads anymore, do they?
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I did, I just expected a much bigger list. I'd have thought there'd be way more games to list than just a few in order to say singleplayer games in general are ruined and that Bethesda saved it.

Fair point about Deus Ex but it had problems before it was even released, such as its Augment Your Pre-Order bullshit.

Star Wars Battlefront (II in particular) isn't ruined so much due to multiplayer but due to the loot boxes fiasco.

CT Phipps said:
We know the disaster of Assassins Creed: Unity where the multiplayer was massively focused on but they couldn't be bothered to make any of the Assassins women. It also took away from polishing the single player experience that had grotesque bugs and an uneven plot..
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I've never played Unity, but at this point in the AC franchise it was being milked to hell anyway, seeing as the main story arc of the first three games had already ended really.

I'll give you Grand Theft Auto V to a degree, but it's not the multiplayer itself that "ruined" it. IV had it, but V's online has an actual economy and Rockstar obviously want to milk it as much as possible.

There's a few franchises that have been spoiled by the modern multiplayer market true, but single player games in general are still going strong.
 
Prone Squanderer said:
I'll give you Grand Theft Auto V to a degree, but it's not the multiplayer itself that "ruined" it. IV had it, but V's online has an actual economy and Rockstar obviously want to milk it as much as possible.

There's a few franchises that have been spoiled by the modern multiplayer market true, but single player games in general are still going strong.
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In that case, it is not necessarily multiplayer that ruins single player experiences, but the monetization appeal they bring, otherwise you get a case like Shadow of War and its lootboxes.
 
Arnust said:
In exchange, New Vegas IS a sequel because while keeping most of the design changes from Fo3, it makes some approach changes to better suit the original school of design, and most of all, it's set in roughly the same region, you meet either the remnants, stragglers and what have become of those original factions. It follows that story, and I don't know how can you really then call Fo2 a sequel as well considering that it has about the same connection to the previous as NV has to 2 itself.
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I am aware that this is an extremely pointless discussion and I'm gonna repeat this just once more, for the sake of practicing my English. :)

You might call NV as a "spiritual successor" to the original games, or an attempt to turn FO3 into an actual Fallout game, but it's definitely NOT a sequel to FO2. Taking place in the same world, having common characters, factions etc. isn't enough to make it a sequel, because it's no longer the story of the Vault Dweller or his grandchild. If, after Rocky I and II, they had decided to replace the main character Rocky Balboa with a random, let's say, postman named John Doe from the same exact city in the third installation, even if this John actually met characters from the first two in the film, could you call it Rocky III? I wouldn't. FNV's case is pretty much this. On the other hand, the LotR is pretty much Frodo's story, instead of Bilbo (his uncle) in the Hobbit and is a sequel to the Hobbit, as it follows both the characters and their story, pretty much the same way as FO2 do. FNV is an unrelated story of a random courier, in a nearby region. If you really want to think of FNV as a sequel, that's fine for me, but it's really not.

Valdetiosi said:
I mean, wouldn't you agree @nkchan16 that New Vegas is damn good expansion over 3? It's not at top quality like 1/2 was, but it definitely has overall elements/mechanics from the previous games and tries to work at it's best upon 3d game engine, which Bethesda enforced Obsidian to use.
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Whether it's a good game or not is debatable, but it's definitely more to my taste, especially with the hardcore mode on.
 
And monetization caused by a mix of mismanagement, greed, need for technical spectacle, which ends up making he development costs unbelievably huge, which in turn needs those extra spits to at least try and make the money back. Multiplayer is, of all things, the LAST problem here.

CT Phipps said:
almost ruined the Star Wars license as it was such a sink of resources.
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:rofl:

Also I made that game list for fucking nothing didn't I
 
Don't know if it's been posted before in any other thread but anyone who didn't play the original Fallout games (1 & 2) back in 98, should definitely watch this video to see what Fallout was all about and why new games are no longer Fallout.

 
Eh, I mostly was appealing to the games which I felt were important to me as a whole versus trying to argue the entire industry's disturbing trend to fall back on multiplayer over single player.

But off the top of my head:

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
Halo
Dead Space 3
Grand Theft Auto V
Homefront
Assassins Creed: Unity
Mass Effect 3's endings were warped by the fact they had a Multiplayer by necessity moment.
Spec Ops: The Line's completely useless one
Battlefront
Knights of the Old Republic to SW: The Old Republic
Marvel Alliance became Marvel Omega
Star Wars: Visceral *

* https://kotaku.com/the-collapse-of-viscerals-ambitious-star-wars-game-1819916152

But yes, I feel micortransactions are a bigger issue but multiplayer has dominated a lot of these.
 
CT Phipps said:
Grand Theft Auto V is the least problematic example of this as no one thinks GTAV isn't polished as hell. However, all future DLC they planned was dumped into the multiplayer experience and it's their big money maker now they aren't interested in working on any spin-offs or sequels at this time.
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This is the one that bothers me the most because imit means a longet wait for a sequel and no DLC. To an actually good game.
 
nkchan16 said:
Don't know if it's been posted before in any other thread but anyone who didn't play the original Fallout games (1 & 2) back in 98,
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I fail to see how when I played them matters so much. Point is I did and I loved them. I fell in love with the universe, the attention to detail concerning consistency, the characters and freedom. And new Vegas has such a huge amount of great characters and the most amount of freedom in the fallout trilogy. Its closer to the original than 2 in terms of tone and the sheer amount of player freedom allows for a heap of endings. Fallout is so much more than just turn based combat. If that's all fallout is to then you're incredibly close minded. It's a world meant for writers and players to explore. And I'd say they did that with NV more so than in even 1/2 and with a great grasp on what the fallout universe is.
 
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Fallout 3 had a huge number of factions.

It's also one of the most atmospheric games of all time.

That chart is bullshit.
 
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