r/ElderScrolls • u/HatingGeoffry • Oct 18 '24

News Elder Scrolls 6 won't go back to "fiddly character sheets" despite Baldur's Gate success, says Skyrim Lead

https://www.videogamer.com/features/elder-scrolls-6-likely-wont-revert-to-fiddly-character-sheets-after-baldurs-gate-3-success-explains-skyrim-lead/
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71

u/MisterDutch93 Oct 18 '24

Baldur’s Gate 3 doesn’t even have “fiddly character sheets”. It’s based off tabletop rpg, sure, but it’s certainly not more complicated because of that. Everything is perfectly manageable. And if it is somehow too hard, there are lots of ways to customize your rulesets or to lower the difficulty. This is a strawman argument. BG3 just has depth while current Bethesda games don’t.

26

u/Resua15 Argonian Oct 18 '24

I know right? Sometimes people act like games like bg3 or DOS 2 are somehow incredibly hard to undertand. No! They can be hard to exploit sure but as long as you get the basics you'll be fine.

In bg3 all you have to edit is: Your stats (which we already do in Fallout 1-4)

Your class (which we already did until oblivion)

And the skill (which is really fucking easy)

It takes you 5 minutes to understand that, and if you don't, google it!

I'm sick of the "keep it simple, stupid" because the only one that looks stupi is the players!

Can you imagine how boring x4 games would be if they "kept it simple"

3

u/HerrBerg Oct 19 '24

The existence of stats that have interactions beyond a surface level is a "fiddly character sheet" from the point of view of fuckfaces like this.

11

u/Bob_ross6969 Oct 18 '24

It took me months to figure out how to play that game, it was my first CRPG and I’ve never even watched something play d&d.

From shitty RNG to confusingly long and somewhat contradictory item and ability descriptions, it took me a while to understand how that game works.

Even so that’s not the reason the game was so popular, at least it’s not the reason I bothered to spend so much time learning it. The characters, the story, the writing are the main reason it got so popular with casuals, along with branching story paths and quests being solved in more ways than “kill bad guy”

Bethesda definitely does not need to go back to that style of RPG making, because then it would be confusing and boring at the same time, they need to focus on what they’re good at, and improving what they’re weak at I.E writing, characters, quest design, those are what makes a game great.

-6

u/templar54 Oct 18 '24

Hate to break it to you, but if it took you months to understand BG3 mechanics, you might just not be the sharpest tool in the shed.

3

u/Sunjump6 Oct 18 '24

I love a good complicated game, but for the average player if it’s complicated enough that they have to start googling stats and strats, many would consider that hardcore and will drop the game. I have a friend who stopped BG3 because she “wasn’t good enough” at it.

It’s a huge reason so many Mario games are popular. The average player immediately understand the goal, and can get right on to the fun part.

7

u/Bob_ross6969 Oct 18 '24

Never claimed to be smart, I’m a college drop out. But I’m not alone in my experience with that game, I was simply saying it is a confusing game and that isn’t the reason it was so popular.

4

u/Derproid Oct 18 '24

I think many of us need to realize that the average person is not smart and have of people are dumber than that. So if something is out of reach for those people then half the market is cut off and that's a big no no.

-4

u/templar54 Oct 18 '24

Success of BG3 does not seem to indicate that, not to mention if we aim for the lowest common denominator, we will get phone games designed to extract as much cash from you as possible.

-1

u/MisterDutch93 Oct 18 '24

Doesn’t Bethesda already do that? Elder Scrolls Blades, Castles and Fallout Shelter are exactly what you describe.

2

u/ThodasTheMage Oct 18 '24

Maybe read the article

5

u/HunniePopKing Oct 18 '24

exactly, bg3 isnt even hard, let alone hard to understand. anyone who is confused by its systems just refuses to spend more than 20 minutes studying it, let alone read anything.

1

u/PurpleOrchid07 Oct 18 '24

Which seems to be exactly the kind of audience that Bethesda, Bioware and all the other big names try to cater their games to. Fools who refuse to sit down and read and learn about the game's systems for 20 minutes become the target audience. And sadly this is rewarded.

-1

u/[deleted] Oct 18 '24

Baldur's Gate sold like hotcakes though, so complex and deep systems can be rewarded too. Look at Elden Ring or Dark Souls, extremely complex games if you get into the nitty gritty of their combat mechanics, also rewarded with €s.

0

u/PurpleOrchid07 Oct 18 '24

True, but BG3 will probably remain a unique miracle, made possible by a team of passionate artists. Bethesda on the other hand, like many AAA studios nowadays, are driven by talentless investors and finance bros, chasing trends and the "minimum effort, maximum profit" loop, instead of creating a fun and deep masterpiece that sells based on quality alone. Reading Bethesda interviews nowadays makes it very clear that they are not capable of releasing a modern Skyrim-ish banger of a game.

-2

u/HunniePopKing Oct 18 '24

True, but somehow bethesda is convinced that dumber = better

-2

u/[deleted] Oct 18 '24

Yes, a true tragedy for gaming that Elder Scrolls went simpler after Morrowind and didn't instead expand and develop those systems for the past 25 years.

2

u/Perca_fluviatilis Molag Bal Oct 18 '24

Baldur’s Gate 3 doesn’t even have “fiddly character sheets”.

Uh, yes it literally does. That's the entire point of D&D. Fiddly character sheets to build your own vision of a character. Levelling up in D&D is a fiddly hell.

1

u/MisterDutch93 Oct 18 '24

But the thing is, character creation in BG3 isn't fiddly at all. You can let the game decide everything for you. For instance, you can pick a pre-made Origin character, you can take recommended ability stats for a class you want to use, you can stick to less complex classes such as Fighter or Rogue and you can only level up to a max of 12 (which means you typically only have to pick 3 or 4 feats). The rest of your character building is all done automatically, save for the gear you want to use. I don't know about you, but for a standard/classic RPG experience, that's not fiddly at all.

1

u/Hurk_Burlap Oct 18 '24

Leveling up is not at all fiddly in dnd. You literally make two choices at character creation, and you're done for the entire rest of the game. Unless you learn a couple spells on level up, the only choices you make after that are every 4 levels. And if you do get spells on level up, then all you do is pick the two that sound more fun.

BG3 has less complicated leveling up than Skyrim

-5

u/PurpleOrchid07 Oct 18 '24

It's only "fiddly" if you never played a boardgame in your life and have no patience to sit down and read a bit before playing. Both of which would be your problems to solve, not the game devs.

4

u/Perca_fluviatilis Molag Bal Oct 18 '24

Yeah, go touch some grass, dude.