Creation Engine Limitations

What exactly is the problem with Bethesda's game engine? Besides it's age.

What are specific things it cannot do/can't do.

Other urls found in this thread:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamebryo#Games
ign.com/articles/2010/08/14/why-there-are-no-ladders-in-fallout
twitter.com/SFWRedditImages

Ladders

Fluid animation.

Stable games

Any sort of vehicles with reliability

Polearms

Also saying that I still don't know how they got the cart ride at the beginning of skyrim to work so smoothly. blows my mind that they were able to pull that off.

Truly next gen

Seriously though I guess it's kinda good for what they use it for. I mean is there really another game series where there's so much clutter and shit, all the different armor parts on NPCs that are actually things you can take for yourself and stuff like that. Bethesda games may be crude in many ways but in the end there aren't really other games of the same scope. I mean there's open world games but they don't have the same interactivity down to the small stuff

The cart was really a hat for an NPC that walked under the ground, and they glued the prisoner animations to the seat

>What are specific things it cannot do
make good games

A lot of the stuff that doesn't make it into their games or is done poorly is probably more Bethesda's fault (out of laziness) than the engine's but stuff like the physics breaking at higher than 60 fps is the way they developed the engine.

There's really now way to know the actual limitations of the engine except by how the games made on it work but that's filtered through how Bethesda develops the games.

>name some stuff that it can't do
>ok here
>yeah but seriously
fuck off

The wheels turn and horses move realistically. I know you're referencing the infamous trick for Fallout 3.

Tessalation. Animation blending. Etc. etc.

I'm sure there are other games using Gamebryo that have functional ladders. They aren't very complex things

No ladders presents the bad level design we have come to see, constant ramps and no real vertical designs in dungeons. Its all hallways leading to a ramp to more ramps.

I would take the removal of all physics on objects if it meant we get open cities too.

>tessellation
Careful, user. Don't want to trigger the AMD users.

Can't climb ladders. I forget who on the team said it during an interview, but putting a ladder in the game for a character to climb really makes the engine shit itself for some reason.

...

Its literally a hand-animated scene thats manually inserted. Regular physics are suspended for the duration of the scene, and kick in after the prisoner jumps off the cart. That's what the little stutter is right after you jump off and the in-game scripting takes over.

Humorously enough, if a mod edits physics properties in some way, it can cause the physics to kick in when the game starts instead of after the scene, making the cart spaz out. The civilian you pass with the basket too; the basket often falls out of her hands, all the stuff in it falls THROUGH the basket, and rolls down the hill after you.

Just about the only thing bethesdas engine is good for ease of modding.

not sure if I can believe you, but this sounds just plausible enough lol

I couldn't resist

It's no longer about specific things it can't do, it's about the few things that it can do. it's hopelessly outdated at this point.

>people saying no ladders
they could fucking code in ladders you dumbfucks. there's nothing about the low level engine technology that makes ladders impossible. bethesda just knows (correctly) that ladders are generally bad game design

They could just make you use levitation or jump boosts like in Telvanni towers and some of the shrines

But oh wait that would break the cities

Divinity 2 has ladders and runs on the Oblivion era Gamebryo. Speaking of which, that game runs and looks great for its time and small budget.

Prove it can't do ladders. There's mods in Skyrim for climbable ropes and power armor in 4 is much more like a vehicle and is much more advanced than how ladders work.

What engine would be better for their purposes? There's nothing wrong with Gamebryo per se, here are some Gamebryo games en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamebryo#Games

It's just the way they develop their games

Dark Souls series use them all the time

They're just lazy fucks.

>ign.com/articles/2010/08/14/why-there-are-no-ladders-in-fallout
>"Howard explained the primary reason for not being able to include ladders into environments is due to their engine, saying ladders caused problems for character AI."

I'd love to see what their Creation engine looks like at this point, it must be a horrible mess of shit glued onto it over 15 years

It just doesn't work

>Ladders cause problem for AI
That's not proof ladders don't work in the engine that's just proof they have shit AI.

Fallout 4 is the epitome of hack dev time

Gamebryo is capable of lots of things, its Bethesda that is the limiting factor

Divinity 2 Ego Draconis uses Gamebryo and you can climb ladders in that game

Even if the engine is generally fine and Bethesda just fucked their version up it's still pretty old. It's like still wanting to use Source, and trying to code in modern things into it. People are doing that with UE3 still and it can cause issues.

They have the license to idtech6. Every other game under Bethesda is using it so they could too. The main obstacle they'd have is implementing mod support into it. Even if the engine can't do large open worlds they could modify it to do that.

He literally said in the quote that the engine doesn't play nicely with ladders. Character AI is part of the engine, if ladders fuck with the AI then it's fucking with the engine.

All models must be made outside of the program. There's no native polygon tool like in Hammer aside from collision boxes, trigger boxes, and the name is escaping me but the fields that make objects invisible.

All animations are either Havok-based or part of the model itself. There's no way to just program a prop to move like in Hammer.

You can only have four or so 360 degree shadow casting light. Also, these particular kinds of lights are actually two 180 degree lights stuck together. There give off a noticeable seam.

Limited by the amount of RAM and VRAM that it allows. Modders didn't figure out how to increase this until last year, I think.

>What exactly is the problem with Bethesda's game engine?
Utter incompetency of all people working with it

Multiple moving things apparantly

>the fields that make objects invisible.
nodraw planes

That's probably because they mastered pathfinding. Skyrim has a up-down pathfinding that allows the AI to jump from a cliff to a lower level. There's no down-up pathfinding in Skyrim.

Imagine you're an intern coming in to work on the next Bethesda game. Then you're presented with their 15 year old engine that has things hanging off it with duct tape and somehow it sort of works. Then you're expected to figure out how to do anything with it without breaking the duct tape mechanisms so you carefully stick more stuff onto it with bubblegum or something

>What engine would be better for their purposes?

The next one they make. Nobody makes games like bethesda games, and part of the reason for this is that they really require at least a semi-specialized engine, and part of that is for workflow purposes not engine capabilities purposes.

>There's nothing wrong with Gamebryo per se
Yes, there is. Technology has advanced beyond the point that the core of the engine can be updated to keep up. Basic core elements of the engine have to be completely rewritten now using new software architecture philosophies that didn't even exist when gamebryo 1.0 came out

Dude you're actually debating the guy who fucking works on the game. What are you doing. Shut up.

He wasn't debating anything. You failed to evaluate what he said and you failed to evaluate what todd said.

People who cannot comprehend what they read are not welcome to post here. How has the message not gotten across already?

Mods mostly but sometimes indie games holy shit its a miracle it works.

Fallout 4s enviroment felt like one giant indestructible heightmap. Not a great feeling.

Nothing. Everything just works.

Character AI IS part of the engine. The fact that you're telling someone who's day job is to work with that engine that they're full of shit is laughable.

>What exactly is the problem with Bethesda's game engine?

its used by people who no longer care about making good games and are not interested in discussing how realistic things are in an alternate universe post-apoc game w/ talking mutants and ghouls

You've clearly never worked on a triple-A game before, or probably any game. Speaking out of your ass.

Yeah and you have, go tell actual AAA developers that they know nothing about the tools they use to do their job.

I can't tell if you're pretending to be retarded or you actually are. You're arguing with a direct quote from Todd Howard, the main guy at Bethesda, that he doesn't know how his own damn engine works.

>Character AI IS part of the engine. The fact that you're telling someone who's day job

No it isn't. Character AI is a subsystem that sits on top of the engine, or your engine is trash and/or ancient.

Engine refers to specific things, character AI is game code, not engine code.

>or your engine is trash and/or ancient.

Sounds like Creation Engine to me.

>What exactly is the problem with Bethesda's game engine?

Bethesda.

Character AI is not part of a game engine. You wouldn't know this because you have zero experience in the field.

>or your engine is trash and/or ancient.
Boy I wonder whats the main argument against Beths engine.

yes exactly.

And Todd Howard is saying that it is part of their engine, so unless you have the source code or worked in Bethesda Games Studio. His word is worth more than your word when dealing with his engine despite your pretensions to being an expert videogame developer.

you have to be 18 to post on this board

>I am a prestigious videogame developer! Look at me! I'm so great, I develop all the good games!

>And Todd Howard is saying that it is part of their engine

todd howard is giving an excuse that little kids like you buy because you don't have the first clue about how games are programmed and what constitutes "engine code"

run along now. this isn't a place where we just eat up what we're told. some people here are actually programmers.

His "word" is your misinterpretation of his quote.

He's lying. Well, about Skyrim at least. That was a trick they used for a subway car in Fallout 3.

>"Howard explained the primary reason for not being able to include ladders into environments is due to their engine, saying ladders caused problems for character AI."
>Due to their engine, saying ladders caused problems for character AI

Yes, you have worked on all the best AAA games Mr AAA developer. You know everything.

I too am a AAA developer, I work on Call of Duty. AMA.

How hard would it be to just make the train its own thing and have it not affected by gravity and just animated? That's what I would have thought to do first than have the player enter a hat worn by another NPC. Although maybe they did try that first.

are you seriously arguing common, widely available knowledge about development and implying bethesda is somewhat special? they are, they use 15yo tech and slap new features on it without measure

It can't do well with large numbers of NPCs on screen. That's why the civil war battles have maybe five guys on each side and dead bodies periodically disappear.

Or is that actually Bethesda's fault? Are there other Gamebryo games with large battles?

modders do scripting better than developers with MUCH better tools
bethesda has same team since oblivion and morrowind - they stagnated

>Are there other Gamebryo games with large battles?
warhammer online, there is a reason why only bethesda uses that engine after 2006

how come they never used unreal or unity hell why not idtech i mean its the same parent company

Probably because they already know how to get modding to work with their engine and moving to another one would require them to make new tools and write the modding into the engine.

On top of needing to train everyone in the dev team on how to use the new engine.

What the fuck happened to this thread? You're literally arguing that you know more than the person in charge but not substantiating any of it.

Who do you think you are convincing?

let me tell you a secret - todd howard is a know liar

not arguing with you, not trying to convince you. your position is either one of trolling or actual ignorance, i've long passed caring about either

It's Bethesda.

Why is it that modders are better at level design than game devs?

Suddenly the Paradox logo makes sense.

I do not understand why they do not hire modders that make the most super popular high quality mods.

why pay?

People keep saying Bethesda games are unique, butcher legitimately how are they different to the likes of Dragon Age, The Witcher, or even Borderlands etc.

Because then their new games could maybe be better on release instead of it getting fixed after the fact?

Why should that matter to them when they're making a shitload of money with half-assed games?

Eventually the Chads will start figuring it out.

Mods. None of the games you mentioned have as much moddability or as large a modding community as Bethesda games do.

To a lesser extent, the open world and first-person perspective.

Creation Kit is a finicky unstable bitch. Seriously, enable autosave ASAP if you ever try modding Skyrim or Fallout 4. It'll crash for no other reason besides fuck you. Wonder how long the internal "don't do this" list is at Bethesda, must be fun walking new employees through that.

I wonder if the Vertibirds are actually NPCs and its passengers are like armour pieces.

Dark elf sluts.

Doubt it. Only a minority (a very small minority) have major issues with bethesda games.

Again, why pay 30-100k or more for a modder to do what he'll do for free and won't make significantly more sales?

Worse, these guys are not professionals. They are modders. Have you ever cracked open a mods code? Compare a popular one to the base game and look at the differences between professional and amateur practices. Who cares if I document my mods code? It's a mod guys.

If these people were great programmers, they'd be employed as great programmers. Some are. I actually know one personally that mods Skyrim and has worked on several notable titles, one that has a general on /vg/. Still, they are a rarity and most modders are literally 17-23 year olds that love coding and have little or no formal education.

So putting those people in a professional environment might actually cause more harm than the good they will bring.

They're reskinned dragons.

I actually believe you

Kirkbride's alcohol abuse inspired lore

Dragons fly better, I legitimately think they tried to make Vertibirds be an actual thing

> Using veribirds outside of story missions
> Nonstop clipping through the terrain, no changing altitude just a direct shot to the destination
> Spotted by anything carrying a weapon bigger then a pistol
> Instantly shot down and die

Why Bethesda

Are you talking about trainwiz?

.. what? No I'm talking about Rob Nelson not that random dude that tes general sucks off.

I still don't know what mods trainwiz has made and all I know is 1. He liked dwemer stuff a lot 2. tes general treats him like a golden god because he posts there.

Watch the next time they crash, you'll notice they tend to crash towards your general area like dragons do. They also reused a bunch of animations from skyrim.


pic related, I know some code doesn't get cut out of later engine stuff. You can find quake code in source engine but holy shit this is just ridiculous.