The problem is people defending the games as perfect 10/10 GOTY. And just the general gamers who get super whiny and mad if anyone complains about anything in Starfield, saying that's just the "Bethesda genre".

Idk man, Skyrim felt pretty deep in its time period. I spent so much time becoming a member of the thieves guild, and it felt important and immersive. It's shallow compared to BG3, sure, but it also came out 20 years prior.

I think it’s the time of development. Bethesda games used to be shallow, but they also came out moderately paced. Now things like starfield take the better part of a decade and it’s still just as shallow, which has some people a bit underwhelmed. Personally it’s been so long since a Bethesda game came out, as a person who isn’t a Bethesda fan to start with, I forgot how shallow Bethesda games were.

I'm enjoying Starfield far more than I expected.

That said the NPC interactions are incredibly sterile in comparison to the full mo-capped acting of the BG3 NPCs. The Starfield NPCs feel like mannequins just spitting out their lines.

It's totally fair. Other companies _could _engage in more dialog with players and take feedback into consideration before release, but they'd rather lean on their prior accolades and slowly leak teaser trailers and whatnot to build hype instead.

I think you mean, time for Bethesda to get their act together rather than create trash. I love skyrim, morrowind, and am excited for starfield, but larian is a bit smaller than Bethesda who is owner by zenimax who is owned by Microsoft and therefore has the folks to make awesome things. And yet you have BG3 as a masterpiece. It's all excuses to me. I wouldn't call it unfair. I'd call it fair. I'd say larian is even handicapped, and they just kicked the pants off Bethesda.

I like Skyrim and Fallout New Vegas, hate Fallout 3, 76, and Starfield. The former are not comparable to the latter.

In case you're interested, let me give you a couple of links:

• Oolite: an open-world space opera.

• Open source recreation of Daggerfall in the Unity engine.

You're doing it right. Just keep playing, and you'll learn as you go. Don't be afraid to search for answers online, or compare D&D to BG3. Later, when you understand the system and a spell's impact to your journey, you can talk to Withers and respec your character, changing your spells and abilities. You can also just use an online guide. Many of the guides have optimized builds that work really well. That's what I did for my companions, since it was a bit much to learn every single class in one playthrough.

Edit: example, this Astarion build is off the hook amazing!

I feel you. I spent a several hours learning about D&D character creation when I picked up BG3. And I spent a couple more hours crafting a back story that I used to influence my character traits. I've never played D&D before, but BG3 is the most fun I've had with a game in several years.

I mean. Disco Elysium is only an RPG in the sense that you get to choose which version of Harry you play. It's not a blank slate situation where you can be whatever you want, you're always just Harry. And it is barely even a game, at the end of the day. It's a novel pretending to be a game.

In terms of RPG design, though, the one thing it truly did put into the forefront was the "fail-forward" ideas present in many interactions, which is something more games should take inspiration from.

Making failure interesting makes the story much more engaging regardless of your choices and your luck by discouraging save scumming and instead letting you feel good about rolling with whatever outcome happens.

The ambiguity of dialogue choices evens out as Harry recovers from his hangover but never completely goes away which honestly is part of the magic for me. Never being 100 percent certain what he's gonna do and sort of trying to nudge him along in the right direction is the game. But it's not a traditional RPG and nowhere near as deep mechanicall as BG3. It's just really good in it's own way. I also had a lot of interest in the politics of the game and a personal battle with drugs and alcohol in my life so it may have resonated more with me as well.

LOL, I have never heard of Disco Elysium. Must not be my type of game.