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Kotaku: Debugging A Massive RPG Like Skyrim Means Leaving Some Bugs In
- Thread starter LordOfLore
- Start date
Maybe they need to take the approach Nintendo had for Breath of the Wild. Large all staff on board play test sessions after any major changes to check if anything has broke. They seem to imply that would be impossible for a large complex game like theirs but Zelda is also incredibly large and complex as well. Seems like their workflow could be somehow improved to get more polish than is currently in there given other large and complex games exhibit a higher level of it.
freeofgreed
Member
Yeah I don't buy that excuse when there's a shit ton of open world games that aren't nearly as buggy as Bethesda games.
NoblesseOblige
Banned
Is comparing it to Zelda really apt? I imagine a game built for multiple consoles from different manufacturers along with PC that has a base seeking the tools to alter the game themselves has different caveats than developing BotW.
Not to mention Zelda is a different genre.
Not to mention Zelda is a different genre.
Not really, no, but it will still be done a lot.
Bethesda's games do a lot of stuff different than Xenoblade or Zelda really.
freeofgreed
Member
Yeah and frankly I don't blame them. People will still buy their games in droves and reviewers never seem to give a shit until after the fact. So why should they spend time and resources improving their tech when it hasn't been detrimental to them in anyway.
Absolutely this. Oblivion blew my mind for visuals when it first came out. Skyrim was acceptable enough but Fallout 4 looked like a right rotter in comparison to its competition. They've definitely fallen behind on looks.
Maybe previously, but I'm not so sure now. Look at the slating in review scores (and sales hit) that Andromeda took. I'm wondering if reviewers will be as forgiving post Breath of the Wild now the bar has been set so high.
freeofgreed
Member
What do they do differently that would cause their games to have significantly more bugs?
NoblesseOblige
Banned
For one it's made for PC with a healthy modding community that wants to get into its guts themselves. Zelda has no such thing even close to it.
Finale Fireworker
Member
It's ancient! It's ugly! I don't know which is worse! ♪
(The bugs don't bother me very much in Bethesda games. Is it a poor standard? Yes. But they've managed to make a brand for themselves that includes this kind of jank and now it is what it is.
My only concern is building up the expectation that games of this size can't be well-polished or well-animated or have good performance. Because they absolutely can.)
(The bugs don't bother me very much in Bethesda games. Is it a poor standard? Yes. But they've managed to make a brand for themselves that includes this kind of jank and now it is what it is.
My only concern is building up the expectation that games of this size can't be well-polished or well-animated or have good performance. Because they absolutely can.)
Bony Manifesto
Member
I think they're different types of games though. The persistent simulation aspects of Xenoblade are non-existent, and in Breath of the Wild they're isolated (and the world constantly resets anyway). Of course that raises the question of why Bethesda need to model so much global stuff in their games anyway - the only time you ever really notice it is when something goes wrong, and some NPC disappears off the face of the earth because they've got stuck on the geometry somewhere during their daily routine.
Yep.
Quite a few games have come out that have outclassed them in different ways from your Witcher 3, Breath Of the Wild and so many other games.
And these games haven't had anywhere near the same level of bugginess at launch. Because they can't rest on their laurals knowing that they have the general consumer mindshare like Bethesda.
freeofgreed
Member
I don't see how that's relevant or how that would cause the game to have more bugs. The console versions of their games are still ridiculous buggy. And plenty of games made for PC with modding communities manage to not be bug riddle messes.
Guerrillas in the Mist
Member
Big difference with Bethesda games: persistence, aka the player and NPCs can leave items and ragdolls everywhere. That will no doubt add a shit-ton of complexity when it comes to QA.
NoblesseOblige
Banned
Because Bethesda obviously builds their games with the intent to make them easily alterable, both by themselves and others. That comes with completely different levels of complexity than something like Zelda where it's a closed system.
Edit: This by no means is meant to be an excuse for Bethesda. It is perfectly fair to ridicule and criticize them on their bugs. But do so with comparisons that actually make sense.
Have you ever played a Bethesda game?
For one, dozens more actors on schedules that are more important than the average NPC in either game and dozens more items to interact with, as well as persistence? There's a reason Skyrim PS3 got fucked, and that was because it was trying to keep every dragon corpse in memory.
They're pretty different approaches to the open world RPG.
I'm gonna say a significant majority of people buying Bethesda's games don't care about acouple points being docked from a score because of technical issues, as every single one of their games is a buggy mess, even in their best state.
Uhhh these games are superficially similar to Bethesda's games at best.
They don't have persistant worlds though.
Are people serious with BOTW comments? I loved it, its a big game, but it has like 1/10th at very best the content in terms of quests, NPCs, items, variables etc. that Skyrim has. Its a sandbox, but theres nothing really persistent in the world Link can really impact.
Edit: I'm way late with this reply lol. Should've refreshed. Still doesn't excuse Bethesda, but they are really the only company that makes games as complex as they do. Even Witcher 3 is extremely simple in comparison.
Edit: I'm way late with this reply lol. Should've refreshed. Still doesn't excuse Bethesda, but they are really the only company that makes games as complex as they do. Even Witcher 3 is extremely simple in comparison.
Shifty
Member
Came in thinking 'another Schreier article lol', left thinking 'yup fair enough makes sense'.
Good stuff. I'm as hard on Bethesda as the next person for the bugginess of their games, but in fairness the only major bug-related memory I have from Skyrim is of having to ragdoll a frozen quest NPC up some stairs with unrelenting force in order to trigger progression.
Could have been worse.
Good stuff. I'm as hard on Bethesda as the next person for the bugginess of their games, but in fairness the only major bug-related memory I have from Skyrim is of having to ragdoll a frozen quest NPC up some stairs with unrelenting force in order to trigger progression.
Could have been worse.
Human Trashcan
Banned
It's not, but everyone here is an armchair game designer and thinks they know what they're talking about. Zelda is a complex, systems-driven game, but not even close to the extent as Bethesda games. Just as one standout example, everything in BOTW despawns as soon as it gets outside of a certain, rather small radius around the player. There's no permanence to anything in BOTW. Not so for Beth games. And the amount of interactibles and AI actions are much greater too. There's just a much larger amount of possible interactions. That's not a qualitative statement about either game, it's just a fact.
Ha! This was my exact thought.
Pantaghana
Member
I think it's fair to shit on Bethesda's terrible writing and lazy quest design.
But on the technical level the games are marvels despite the bugs. Yes, you read that right, marvels.
Their titles are simulated to the degree very few other titles are, on top of being moddable to hell and back.
Both the simulation and mod support bring with it shittons of bugs.
It's a compromise I'm willing to take and wouldn't have it any other way.
But on the technical level the games are marvels despite the bugs. Yes, you read that right, marvels.
Their titles are simulated to the degree very few other titles are, on top of being moddable to hell and back.
Both the simulation and mod support bring with it shittons of bugs.
It's a compromise I'm willing to take and wouldn't have it any other way.
StrawberryJam
Member
Are half of those interactive objects worth having in the long run? Or would their removal make it less of a 'Bethesda' game?
Full disclosure: I do not play Bethesda games and have no clue as their respective quality or what people really enjoy about them so I'm just curious.
And MGSV, GTA, Red Dead, Horrizon... Even Ubi-Soft open world games are less buggy. AE are closing in fast on Bethesda games with Andromeda though.
whyreggielie
Member
No, BoTW has a ton more variables and things that could go wrong with its chemistry system. Skyrim doesn't even come close to the level of physics in BoTW either so I don't see any good reason for so many geometry bugs in the game as well. Fact is the systems programmed into these games are poor, one of the big ones seems to be their spawning system.
Bethesda simply needs things to be cleaner under the hood of their engine. Best way is to start from the ground up or to strip it down to its bones and reprogram with a more modern architecture in mind.
Pantaghana
Member
The games are sandboxes where the player makes their own fun and interactive objects are a big part of that.
And still I'm always amazed how good Skyrim can look on the PS4 Pro. Sure character models are not what we would call next gen (especially compared to something like Horizon or Witcher) but the overall world can look beautiful even with this old engine. In my eyes at least.
UncleSporky
Member
Other games don't let you pick up literally anything in the world and place it anywhere else. That's about the long and the short of it.
Not only does that mean any given room could have twitching food all over the table, or an item that launches and bounces all over the room when you knock something into it, it also means they have to account for the crazy people who decide to pick up every watermelon in the game and place them all in the same small shack.
It's primarily physics. You don't usually encounter mechanical bugs, like "oh I increased my health but actually it went down instead of up."
The Greek Freak
Member
If a game is going to cost me $60 (and have an expensive season pass day 1) like Fallout 4 I expect the game not to bug out or crash every 20 minutes like it did in my time with it on PS4.
Their job being hard doesn't make my time with it any less trash.
I point at FO4 because I had more issues with it then FO3/Skyrim/Oblivion/Morrowind combined. (New Vegas was just as much if not a bigger trash fire).
Their job being hard doesn't make my time with it any less trash.
I point at FO4 because I had more issues with it then FO3/Skyrim/Oblivion/Morrowind combined. (New Vegas was just as much if not a bigger trash fire).
Let me put it this way: one of the big patches of Elder Scrolls online was "we added more interactivity to world objects" because their lack was one of the biggest criticisms of the game and after that patch the game started feeling a lot more like Elder Scrolls even if it still isn't there yet.
It's a huge part of the feel of the games, even though it's not an integral system.
That's just infeasible and not how this kind of software development works. There's always going to be bugs. You just need to draw a line where you think the acceptable bugs are.
Variables are more than just physics, actually encompass almost everything, objects, quest states, decision trees, NPC schedules etc. Zelda isn't even in the same league. The physics in Skyrim applying to almost anything anywhere as opposed to way less objects and almost none in areas with NPCs means Skyrim is doing a lot more on that front regardless. The "chemistry system (lol)" is barely a thing. It's just a hype term for several good novel gameplay mechanics that don't actually attempt to emulate chemistry or really interact much.
This. Most of the interactions in Zelda between different systems are pre-programmed things and some behavior emerges from them. The difference is that in Elder Scrolls literally every single thing is a physics object. If you go inside an inn and use the force breath power, it will sweep up all the food, utensils, shelves, books, people and whatever else is in the scene, and if you save the game and reboot it, those items will stay there. Zelda doesn't persist physics objects when a scene is loaded back in.
UserDoesNotExist
Member
Huh. It turns out the "lazy devs!" argument actually *does* hold for Bethesda. This is a complete rationalization for shit software engineering practices. They should be ashamed of themselves.
Do you work in IT? There is no way to fix all bugs.
NoblesseOblige
Banned
And honestly, these sorts of bugs are more hilarious than they are troublesome. My favorite will always be when the giants club you into space. If I were making a game and saw that I'd say to leave it in.
The Greek Freak
Member
Ok all video games are now $200 and take three times longer to make.
Even the most polished games have hundreds if not thousands of bugs, the issue is that Bethesda continues to let common and game breaking bugs get through.
If Zelda BOTW crashes if I swirl the stick 97 times in a row it doesn't really matter, that bug can be let through because almost no user would ever encounter it.
whyreggielie
Member
NPC's have schedules in BoTW as well and it doesn't matter if one game has less NPC's, a well programmed game uses a universal system for all so the pure quantity of a feature doesn't mean anything if programmed properly. Physics apply to every single object in BoTW and that includes trees, rocks, and literally everything besides solid foundations so yea Zelda takes it quite a few steps further there. Also your whole comment on the chemistry system not being a real thing is bullshit and you know that if you have actually played the game at all.
EDIT: Now I see there is no sense in trying to argue this point between these two games as no matter how you put, Bethesda has a different and frankly bad approach to fixing bugs in comparison to Nintendo. The excuses for the amount of jank their games have don't mean anything if they're not intending on being meticulous about fixing bugs that simply ruin immersion to an otherwise very fun experience.
People calling devs lazy should be ashamed of themselves. A lot of people on these teams work their ass off, blurring the lines of good work life balance way more than they should.
The NPC schedules in BOTW and the amount of physics objects do not compare to the scale they are in Skyrim.