What's more fun, Exploration on the ground in Skyrim or Starfield?

[Blitz4]

Is it more fun to explore every nook & cranny of the map in Starfield or Skyrim?

I'm trying to get a feel for what a procedurally generated Skyrim would look like as TES6 will have procedurally generated maps.

[Sparhawk122]

Skyrim. More enemy variety and fun area to explore.

[Tyrannus]

Skyrim hands down. Skyrim had it's entire map hand crafted (which will always be better), whereas Starfield had a low quality procedural generation. Procedural generation only works for landscapes in sandbox games like Minecraft, but Starfield doesn't have any mechanics to make use of it.

[Blitz4]

Originally posted by Sparhawk122:

Skyrim. More enemy variety and fun area to explore.

The fun area to explore is what I'm looking to hear.

Imagine all creatures and buildings and space-travel was removed from both games. You're just walking around looking at the map.

Just walking on the surface, like has Starfield ever tricked you into thinking, "Dang, dat look good!"

I don't know any game that made procedurally generated maps more fun or better looking than something that was hand-crafted. I want to believe it's possible.

[Blitz4]

Originally posted by Liberte:

Skyrim hands down. Skyrim had it's entire map hand crafted (which will always be better), whereas Starfield had a low quality procedural generation. Procedural generation only works for landscapes in sandbox games like Minecraft, but Starfield doesn't have any mechanics to make use of it.

It also works in 2D rogue like games and also a 2D game like Dwarf Fortress or Rimworld. I never seen them look good or be fun in a 3D game, compared to a hand-crafted 3D game map. How do you believe they'll pull off what they learned in Starfield to make procedural generation work in TES6?

[Marait]

The sense of wandering into cool things is definitely lost.
Oblivion/Skyrim/FO:NV/FO4 all had that moment of "Oh what's that, wait hold on." that was lost.

Something was definitely lost with the disconnected worldspace.

[Tachyon]

Skyrim 100%

[Malus Lupus]

For me, it's Starfield. Why? I have thousands of hours in Skyrim off Steam as I had the DVD. I also have time on Steam. I have played it, replayed it, replayed it again, played it with a bunch of different mods, played it with some of the top new lands mods, played it again. I am Skyrimmed out. This is new.

[Tyrannus]

Originally posted by Blitz4:

Originally posted by Sparhawk122:

Skyrim. More enemy variety and fun area to explore.

The fun area to explore is what I'm looking to hear.

Imagine all creatures and buildings and space-travel was removed from both games. You're just walking around looking at the map.

Just walking on the surface, like has Starfield ever tricked you into thinking, "Dang, dat look good!"

I don't know any game that made procedurally generated maps more fun or better looking than something that was hand-crafted. I want to believe it's possible.

If exploration is what you are looking for, Starfield is not the game for you. Basically every other Bethesda game is really good for exploration (minus Fallout 76, and plus Fallout NV), and you can get them for really cheap.

[dr46onfusion]

I think the outpost system needs aa overhaul, but likely it will be a DLC to add in a storyline content to running a colony outpost.

It would need to be better than Fallout 4 Settlements in space basically.

We need outposts to be vital to your progress in a way, like more research choices, crew member training and level system, and the ability to bring on a pet robotic dog companion in addition to a bipedal companion.

Robotic dog, because regular dogs can't just boost packs.

[Alex]

Skyrim's world is more personalized. More detailed. Starfiled is more generic, but still amazing. Just landed on a jungle like region on a planet and the fauna and flora were amazing. It really felt like an alien planet. But that was it. There was no secret underground tomb filled with traps. No ancient ruins. Just some hostile fauna. Can't have it all I guess.

[Defective Dopamine Pez Dispenser]

Skyrim imo. But that's mostly just because there's no real extrinsic reason to explore every sq inch of the landing zones in Starfield. Now, exploring the large major cities and the other handcrafted locations in Starfield? That's very satisfying imo, but YMMV. Really the landing zones here are just present to give us sources of resources for the resource > research > more resources > crafting loop present in the game, and to give us POI's to explore and get XP from. Very little of it has any real environmental storytelling, and it's mostly RNG what you get.

As each landing zone is around the size of FO4, most likely the next TES won't be procgen, but rather around the size of Skyrim or FO4 or perhaps a bit larger, but ultimately still one contiguous map instead of a massive planet covered with separate zones like we have here. And it will be packed full of much more dense, hand-crafted content. That's the tradeoff with scale vs content. Smaller scale = more development focus on content within that scale. Massive scale = focused content in some areas + a lot of procgen in the rest.

From a gameplay loop standpoint, the landing zones aren't really intended to be treated like Skyrim or FO4, even if they're more or less comparable in size. They're sparsely populated exploration instances. I think of them more like the procgen dungeons in Daggerfall, things to do in a largely empty expanse between the real meat and potatoes of the game.

[dr46onfusion]

You can have both scale and content, but it would require the developers to make free updates to add them in and flesh it out more.

For instance, you can do questing in New Atlantis to help civilians with their living conditions and eventually they succeed long enough to form new outposts on their own, on the same planet, for you to travel to and explore.

Maybe even add in corporate outposts and rivalries, where you can ruin the other outposts.

Kinda amazing everyone wants to live in New Atlantis but has no interest in building new cities.

[Tyrannus]

Originally posted by Blitz4:

Originally posted by Liberte:

Skyrim hands down. Skyrim had it's entire map hand crafted (which will always be better), whereas Starfield had a low quality procedural generation. Procedural generation only works for landscapes in sandbox games like Minecraft, but Starfield doesn't have any mechanics to make use of it.

It also works in 2D rogue like games and also a 2D game like Dwarf Fortress or Rimworld. I never seen them look good or be fun in a 3D game, compared to a hand-crafted 3D game map. How do you believe they'll pull off what they learned in Starfield to make procedural generation work in TES6?

They're not going to. Publicly traded corporations do not care about criticality, they measure success by quarterly profit. Fallout 76 was one of the worst games of the year when it released, plagued by not only a bad game, but also scandal after scandal. They learned essentially nothing from that, as demonstrated in Starfield. Plus, the Bethesda fanshits are still going strong. Until that sentiment changes, they will keep being rewarded for mediocre and bad games. I've been a huge fan of TES since III - V, but VI doesn't look too promising. Maybe TES VI will finally burst the bubble of normies that Bethesda hasn't made a good game in nearly a decade.

[Aggromonk]

I like guns. So Starfield has more appeal to me. The jitters I get when I hear a spacer ship breaking the atmosphere and 'invading' my exploration is great. I instantly look to the skies ts see where they are going to land.

After the disappointing gun play of FO4, this is a breath of fresh air. It's an epic space exploration rpg looter shooter. It scratches the itch for so many different games. I'm uninstalled NMS and Star Citizen and Fallout 4. This is going to be the main game.

[Herald of Fire]

Skyrim. Despite having a universe to explore, most of the areas you can visit in Starfield are pretty uninspired. Might find some raw resources, but beyond that you're looking at rocks as far as the eye can see. No enticing canyons, no waterfalls, no mysterious caves, just rock with smaller rocks and the occasional life form that probably wants to eat the contents of your pack. And you.

Skyrim had that 'stumble upon' gameplay where you could find new quests literally by stumbling onto them, or interesting areas with new loot to find. There's hardly any of that here since every place you go is calculated intent rather than a random act of exploration.