The GOTY 2015 Fallout 4 Discussion in light of RDR 2

Hello duders! I just want to open the discussion about the heated arguments between team Jeff vs. team Brad on Fallout 4 in comparison to RDR 2. I haven't played Red Dead Redemption 2 yet but, from what I can gather, it is praised for its massive scale and scope but without the glaring bugs that Bethesda's games are known for. The crux of Brad's argument is that money and time cannot solve the issues inherent in making a game of this scale and bugs and sometimes even game-breaking glitches is just a reality for these games. My point is, can that argument now be refuted because of the existence of RDR 2 which also has a similar scale? It seems to me that there's a clockwork world in RDR2 which is on par if not better than Fallout 4. What do you guys think?

Anyway, here's the debate in full, the argument starts at around 9:00:

Rockstar asked, "could we push our employees well beyond the mental and physical breaking point in order to make the world's most perfect video game?"

Bethesda asked, "should we?"

My only guess as to why you would ask this question, which is incredibly tone-deaf given what we now know about Rockstar's management practices, is that you haven't read any of the reporting about Rockstar and Red Dead Redemption 2 over the last year. The answer to your question lies there.

@kcin Oh, I'm well aware of that and I sympathize with those who were taken advantage of by Rockstar. And I only ask out of curiosity given that this debate has left a few questions in my mind. Both sides had a point but RDR2 (or to some extent, The Witcher 3) are the only games that I can point to and say "yeah, Brad and Austin's argument doesn't hold up when compared to this".

So the problem lies with extra time on the part of employees and not because of the inherent impossibility of solving these issues, which is Brad's and Austin's argument, meaning the Bethesda's problem can be solved but it would be at the cost of its employees. The ends doesn't justify the means but it can be done thus the argument can still be refuted but extraneous circumstances would make it bad for the well-being of the team making these kinds of games. In short, it's a management and ethics issue rather than a technological one, it would seem.

RDR2 still doesn't come close to what Bethesda is doing in terms of systems and a clockwork world. Never mind that the gameplay is somehow worse.

@redcream: I think their argument falls apart not only because other games have done similar things without the technical mess, but also because Bethesda didn't even make any headway on the problem. At some point the underlying systems are not changing dramatically enough that the technical issues can be excused. How many Morrowind/Oblivion/Fallout 3/Skyrim/Fallout 4's do they need to make to make progress on this front?

@sirpsychosexy: Yeah, just as Jeff was saying, by every iteration some problems have got to be solved somehow, not all of them, but at least a portion. But then Brad countered by saying that making bespoke sections and fixing problems will curtail freedom and disrupt all the moving parts of the game which may be plausible at the time but not anymore, again, pointing at RDR 2 as an example.

I am on Jeff's side on this. Not because errors are inexcusable (they are not) or the idea that an studio can throw money and time and that should fix every problem (which is also false), but because they have been using the same technology for way over 10 years, and fixing or improving on things is clearly not in their pipeline.

Glad you posted this, i had the same thought recently.

@mems1224

I think your totally wrong in terms of tech underneath this thing has a lot a random generated stuff like scripted events being placed in random places on the map, probably linked to some progression or a timer, but as some who's researching these technologies (job wise) it's pretty impressive what they did. A lot of Fallout 4 stuff is static most the npc's got a set path, and it's a old school way of making things, but with the rise of computer automation where gonna see more "random scripted event's" in games. The big fault with Bethesda is there using old tech (gamebryo/creation engine) to solve modern game problems. I think them building a new engine with computer generation in mind would solve a lot of there problems.

@soulcake: Fallout still has way more going on besides random scripted events which it also has in random places around the map. There is more variety in the gameplay and how you can spec your character, it has a pretty in depth base building mechanic, you can build and customize your own weapons and armor, you can interact with a lot more of the environment, there is a larger variety of enemies, it has branching quest lines and different factions. It just has way more going on. Not to mention that Bethesda games are built to be fully moddable and customizable on both pc and consoles.

First off, RDR 2 is much much smaller than most people make it out to be. It seems very big due to the pacing, but once you wrap your head around it it's not some grand open world. Secondly, just because RDR 2 is more seamless it doesn't mean it's flawless. I've seen NPCs vanish, I've had quests bug out, I've gotten stuck in geometry. Compared to something like AC Odyssey RDR 2 isn't some technical marvel, it just has a more cohesive design making it all seem more immersive.

@mems1224: All of these things are static events just written away somewhere. like for example the xp system and talent stuff might seem complex but if your good with excel you could probably right it in there it's a bunch simple calculations the game does cause you interacted with something. I am talking about complex calculation for dumb stuff like tree movement, the way the sun interacts with different material how they implemented some sort of fake ray tracing on 5 year old hardware. The way the world interacts with you in a non static way, not getting the same dialogue over and over again, 500000 lines of Dialogue! 300000 different types of animation. Compared to fallout 4's 111000 lines. Hearing the same two lines from a fallout 4 dudes get's old at some point. Anyway most of the time the things you don't interact with are the most impressive.

Dumb shit like how the sun illuminates your noseflaps, that's the stuff that amazes me the most.

I figured Brad was specificially saying that in regards to how you can interact with pretty much every item in the elder scrolls games, and put them anywhere in the world, all with their own physics tied to that. RDR has a bunch of characters with interactions tied to them, but it sounds like the interactions with the world lies mostly in how the NPC's behave. As far as i know ( i might be wrong though) your actions don't react in items ragdolling around the place in the infinite ways that they can.

I have to disagree here, as much as I am enjoying Red Dead the amount of moving parts in this game is not similar to the amount of moving parts in a Bethesda game. The majority of Red Dead's map is empty space and like others have said it is far from flawless.

Yeah, i've encountered quite a lot of bugs, not as many as Fallout 4 but I also put a lot more time into that game. Also every object in a (post Oblivion) Bethesda RPG is a physical thing that can be tossed around, broken down, destroyed etc. whereas a lot of objects in RDR2 are stuck to tables and behind shelves. Physics and AI seem to be the two main sources of open world jank and RDR2 has a lot less crammed together than Fallout 4 does.

I will say that I miss some of the weird glitches from the first Red Dead Redemption.

Scripting error is not something you can inherently solve with technology right now, it’s just more manpower. RDR2 doesn’t compare to Fallout 4 in terms of possibilities and player agency to the world and I still think Jeff’s take absolutely is arm-chair development. At some point I think he said that if they can’t fix those games, they may as well not make them, but on the other hand there’s a lot of players (myself included) that are willing to accept those issues in a game that has this many moving parts. I find it extremely dismissive to say that’s having low expectations, it’s more about wanting ambitious games and being realistic with the problems that come with this ambition.

RDR2 is more on the level of the Witcher 3 with more seamless interaction, which is still infinitely impressive. It’s also unfair to compare anything to a Rockstar game because they have infinite budget (and act like they have infinite manpower too, as we’ve seen). Obviously RDR2 is not without issues but it’s much cleaner than a Bethesda game. Also everything that is mainline in RDR2 is extremely linear, not sure it’s really because of the same reasons but it’s obvious they don’t want you to mess with their scripting too much (I had multiple fail states because I strayed too far from the main path).

Brad and Austin were still absolutely right, as disappointing as it can feel. The Witcher 3 and RDR2 are maybe the closest thing from a Bethesda game we’ve seen from another studio, but they’re still extremely far from it in term of scripting possibilities.

I'll preface this by saying that I haven't played Red Dead Redemption 2. I have seen it played quite a bit, but haven't played it personally.

Still, it doesn't seem like Red Dead's world has as many underlying systems as Bethesda's games. Bethesda's stuff has to keep track of the location and properties of pretty much every item and NPC in the world. No other game series tries to do this. The Witcher doesn't. Red Dead doesn't. Grand Theft Auto doesn't. Assassin's Creed doesn't. All of this games have goings-on that make the world feel more "natural", sure, but a lot of that is either randomly generated or just a simple flag (example: In RDR 2, if you walk around town in the same clothes you commit crime in, people will recognize you. That's probably just a simple check on the processor's part, "did player character commit crime in these clothes? If yes, NPC's suspicious, if no NPC's not suspicious"). You can't go into a store and pick up and move literally everything that isn't nailed down in anything other than a Bethesda game.

I don't think this totally excuses Bethesda's horribly extensive list of bugs, awful performance issues, and altogether jankiness, but I also think that their brand of open world RPG still does more with objects and actors than anything else out there. They definitely need a new engine, though. And I'm not talking about "a heavily modified Gamebryo" engine like the Creation engine. I'm talking about disconnecting from the Gamebryo engine altogether. Bethesda games should be better at this point, and they have to be if they want to continue to compete against the likes of CD Projekt Red and Rockstar.

I guess the real question is, does that really matter? Does Bethesda's willingness to put so much interaction and so many interconnected systems in their games actually make for a better game, or would they be better off limiting their systems and instead putting more focus on quests and mechanics? Maybe, but one of the things that defines those Bethesda RPG's is being able to walk into a store and turn it completely upside down, or walking into town and seeing that everyone has a name, face, some sort of basic personality, and their own interactions with each other. When you walk into Whiterun in Skyrim, you see several different people interact with each other in different ways. One of the kids running around bullies the other. You see two different feuding families complain about each other and act hostile towards each other. You see people trying to sell stuff as other (named!) NPC's walk by. It starts to repeat itself after running through several times, but that's because it's not just random occurrences. Does anything like that happen in Red Dead Redemption, or is it just people milling about all the time?

Do we have any proof that Bethesda treats their employees better than Rockstar does? I know we don't have a big scandal about it or anything, but that doesn't mean there aren't underpaid and overworked employees at Bethesda.

Apples and Oranges

You should play RDR 2 first or do a little more reading about the game before bringing up this argument.

The narrative that RDR2 is somehow this polished glitch-free gem rings really false to me. I've already run into quite a few glitches in RDR2 that are pretty par for the course in big open world games: janky and broken animations, weird ragdoll physics disasters, t-posing NPCs, bizarre clipping, and other assorted visual glitches. On top of that, there's apparently a massive, easy to run into glitch early on that makes it impossible to interact with some key NPCs outside of missions. Maybe I'm just unlucky, but in my experience Red Dead's been about par for the course so far in terms of open world jank. Also, to echo other posts in this thread, there's a lot of shit in Red Dead but it's still not really on par with a Skyrim or Fallout 4 in terms of player choices, play styles and systems. This isn't to say that Bethesda shouldn't try to do better (they really, really should), but the comparison isn't fair. When someone else makes a game where you can pick up any random physics item in a massive open world and throw it around or drop 50 cheesewheels out of your ass without glitches firing, then we can talk.

As impressive as rdr2 is, it doesn't come anywhere near matching the sheer amout of systems that Bethesda games are capable of.

@redcream: I think this is a great comparison, as Bethesda games have simplified over the years and as RDR2 has gotten so complex, I would definitely put both games into the same RPG category, just take out the leveling and honestly I think Red Dead is deeper. Seeing just how much polish and animation every little corner of this massive world has, and how reactive all the NPC's are to you proves that games don't have to have that famous Bethesda jank. I dont see why people here are saying the two aren't comparable, massive reactive worlds that you take on quests and develop skills over the course of the game. There are glitches in red dead, but nothing bad. Rockstar openly admitted to 3 weeks of crunch, thats not really a problem, less than a month after many years of development.

Actors and locations in Bethesda games remember so much more than those in RDR2.

RDR2 is striving to be a polished game which appears dynamic. Not to spoil anything, but I just did a chase scene through the big city in that game, where the person running away was ducking from alley to alley, pushing past people ect. That whole sequence was scripted so that it could appear as smooth as it did.

In a bethesda game, if an NPC was told to run away from the player, it would just run. It would put one foot in front of the other deciding the best path to escape. And maybe it would get away, or maybe it would get stuck running into a rock and look buggy as fuck.

RDR2 has the advantage in not appearing buggy as fuck because they don't leave as much to their actors and environments to figure stuff out for themselves.

@gtb08:Except the world in Red Dead really doesn't react that much outside of a few scripted events. For example I went into the Doctors office in Valentine, was forced to kill the doctor to get into the back, hours later he was right back behind his counter bitching that I was back. In any Fallout or Elderscrolls game (provided that doctor isn't essential) he would be a body on the floor. Red Dead is a lot of fun, and has a lot going on, but compared to a Bethesda game, where almost everything can be manipulated, they aren't in the same ballpark in terms of things that can go wrong.

So what's the question? If you spend more time and money developing a game the result is less bugs?
I'm not sure there's much to discuss, i agree.

If the question is "Fallout 4 is worse because it possibly has more bugs" that's incorrect, i haven't played either but i know for a fact it's not as cut and dry as something like that.

The problem with single player games is that they have a release date, there are just too many loose ends that are shipped unfinished. That said, bugs and broken quests shouldn't even count as open world jank. Open world jank is when systems interact that shouldn't, like when you already have taken the quest item, before you triggered the quest....So when you set out to make a game, one principal question is:

(A)Should all objects exist in the world already, or (B) should quest objects spawn as a quest to find them starts?

This is a fundamental issue. Most games go with Option B and they basically create these inconsequential/re-spawning hub worlds with a bunch of filler quests, but it's also glaringly fake and unrealistic. But if you go with option A, and all quest items are in the game, then obviously quests start to break, and also you can't reuse locations for different missions. You have exterminated all bears, but then need 10 Bear pelts...

What type of game is RDR 2?

My ideal game game should be a simulation and have limited resources, breakable quests, mortal NPC and even limited time, say X amount of days, which is extremely rare (i. e. Sid Meier's Pirates!, Rogue-likes). Most games lately go the other route, everything is re-spawning and infinite. They tend to be single player MMOs, so that nobody ever has FOMO and the game fixes itself, by simply rebooting the world.

A game doesn't have to be realistic at all, but it would be nice to see it actually play out with impact and consequence, which obviously is very hard to track and save. Instead impact is faked by the scripted story and consequence is replaced by " RPG progression" and numbers going up. Even Bathesda games are mostly B, with a little bit of A and Quest items already sprinkled in and some limited resources, replacements and breakable objects.

I respect Brad, but his take here is nonsense, Bethesda's games are far too buggy for what they are, scale and scope or not. Their many MANY bugs, exploits and oversights are, in fact, fixable as evidenced by the huge community patches modders (people, who are not even involved with the actual development of the games) put out for their every release. Yet Bethesda often still doesn't fix those very bugs and puts out a billion ports of the same game with the same poor code. Fallout 4 is a bad game for many reasons, poor coding is not even the most important one.