After the Mostly Negative Starfield, do you want to see more games with procedurally generated content?

I'm pretty sure Torchlight 2 had procedurally generated levels, I quite liked it.

I wanna see more negatively reviewed games people still feel compelled to put a few hundred hours into before they come to that conclusion. 🤣

I don't necessarily have anything against procedural generation, works well in roguelikes or anything else that uses a random seed to generate a world, just that infinitely large world bullcrap never seems to work.

Between roguelikes, and some simulation games, I see nothing wrong with it. Problem is, Bethesda gameplay loop is dull, and the moment to moment gameplay is even duller.

If it can be done right then yes, a lot of rogue style games depend on this.

Any technology used for gaming has its place... It's knowing when to use it that matters.

Actually, threads about Starfield feel procedurally generated at this point.... There's a patodox for you Hardy!

Starfield as well as almost ALL recent Xbox games have massively negative reviews on Steam.

These negative reviews seem fishy as the number of hours on this game prove otherwise. I have second doubts about user reviews now.

Maybe Starfield is not as bad as user reviews show. They could be fake.

nah Starfield sucks.

As others have said, it can be fine in certain genres where level design isn't too important such as Roguelikes and Diablo. But for the most part, no. I've never played anything proceduraly generated that was interesting. There will probably come a day when AI can outdo a human, but we aren't there yet.

...mostly negative? Honestly it was mostly positive. The negatives only stand out because a.) expectations were so high, and b.) they were fairly rare that they stood out.

As for the topic:

Yes, I think it is a valuable tool in development. I am not so sure it is good to use for gaming, though. At least not with something that requires large amounts of detail.

It's fine for dungeon crawlers and simple stuff, but anything with large amounts of 3D terrain and open-world design and I think the issues tend to stand out.

With that said, as a development tool, I think it's downright necessary to have systems that use procedurally generated content. How else do you render entire landmasses, planets, etc.? By hand? GTFO.

They really do.

"AI, make me a Starfield thread!"

*AI scans for Starfield, sees mostly negative user reviews. Amasses and average of reviews*

"Starfield is a terrible game, and it called my pet gecko a dirty name. In fact the clipping is so bad..."

Some of my favorite games use procedural generation. They just aren't Starfield.

Absolutely nothing wrong with procedural generation, but what do you expect when Bethesda just stops at the landscape and calls it good???

It's not technology that's at fault here. Besthesda is a sh*t developer. No one should give a damn what Bethesda makes.

People saying it works for rogue likes, and i couldn't disagree more. I prefer replaying the exact same well crafted level than some turd that might or might not be more polished one run out of ten. Hades and Returnal has only strengthen my stance on the matter.

What are those games?

TC is ignorant on the topic of procedural generation so I understand the need to broadcast the ignorance.🙃

Hasn’t procedurally generated content in games been a thing for a very long time now already?

• Dead Cells - Great, branching level design based on themes.
• Deep Rock Galactic - Very cool systems of destructible caves.
• RimWorld, Dwarf Fortress - Emergent narratives built on tons of systems interacting. Dwarf Fortress litterally generates generations of history and events to build the world.
• 7 Days To Die - It has taken the devs a while, but the maps this game generates are pretty wild. They feature dense cities with high rises, suburbs, sparsely populated forests and mountains. It may look a bit weird because of the voxel nature of the building and crafting systems, but the concepts are there.

Bethesda games have always relied on procedural generation at least to start with. The trouble with Starfield is just they set their goal at sparsely populated planets. Bethesda world design is at it's best when they use a mix of PG and artistic design. I don't think PG is to blame for the flawed design goals of BGS when developing Starfield.

To take it a step further, I want to see more attempts at prcedural generation using AI to fill the world with unique structures, NPCs, and events. I realize that one might take a while to produce meaningful results, but I'm here for it.

Of the games you've mentioned, i can only see RimWorld being better with procedural generation than not, and that's because the visuals are very simple. Titles with better graphical fidelity, where you're able to clearly distinguish structures and assets, i don't think its adding anything to the experience.

And while Bethesda did a pathetic job with Starfield, Starfield is far from being the only game where its this apparent. Bloodborne chalice dungeons as an example, was the game that showed me how far behind this technology is when compared to a talented developer like Fromsoft, and their handcrafted levels.

They are. But not many AAA titles use it, and even less fumble their way around like Starfield did.

@hardwenzen: Can you back up that claim?

Do you want me to post a review of a guy who've played it 500 hours, and mentions how flawed their procedurally generated content is? Cuz that's easy, and someone who spent 500h+ in the game knows wtf he is talking about.

With the way No Man's Sky uses "procedurally generated" system, I can say it was a successful tech back in 2016 when that game released. And now with the upcoming Light No Fire, I'm far more curious as to how "procedurally generated" will do on a single giant planet when Light No Fire comes out. The tech has its place and how it is used by developers will find a successful or it's a failure.

Oh and as for Starfield...no comment.

Depends on implementation. Bloodborne did it with Chalice Dungeon and honestly its a slog to go through in later stages due to repetitive stage and environment design. No Man Sky on the other hand did it great, I personally enjoyed the original iteration and resource gathering nature of original release. I haven't been back since the Next gen update but I read in the subreddit it since gotten much better with frequent massive updates.

@hardwenzen: You said that not many AAA games use procedurally generated content in games. Can you back that claim up? 🤷‍♂️

Edit: Didn’t ask if you could post something about someone else’s opinion about Starfield but I guess that’s all you got on most things anyway. 😅

I remember when the PS4 was coming out and procedurally-generated content was the word. Don't Starve comes to mind in particular. Now that an XBOX game has it, it's a bad thing? Hmmm, me dunno....

Firstly, its not an opinion, but fact. Starfield procedural content is one of the worst seen in a game, and possibly THE worst of any AAA title. Well, actually, i'd give that to D4, but maybe Starfield is second.

Secondly, procedural content is pretty obvious, it changes, and in most aa/aaa games it doesn't so🤷‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤷‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤷‍♂️

Procedurally generated content isn't going anywhere and will only continue to get better. It's only a matter of time until the technology and parameters grow to the point that more developers are using AI and procedural generation than any other tool. You don't have to like it, but it's inevitable.

@hardwenzen: So that’s a “no” then.

K thnx bye. 😅👋

@Pedro: Sadly the uploader of that video did not make it available in my country. 😔

There are games that do it well, so yeah, I'd like to see it continue and improve.

Yeah same here what gives?

I've always wondered how you can upload a video to Youtube and pick which countries can see it, makes no sense to block it from other countries when Youtube is all about views.

More views = more money.

@last_lap: I think it has to do with different media rights in different countries. One company may hold the rights to broadcast something in one country while another company or companies may hold the rights to broadcast it in other countries. Or something of that nature.

I understand if it was on a news channel where their affiliate in another country may hold the rights, but on Youtube though? Also I don't know what is on the video Pedro was posting.

Youtube is the place where content is stolen everyday and nothing ever happens.

If you had actually played those games, you would have known that procederal generation is adds to those games, but alas, you called Dwarf Fortress an Ant Game, so I doubt you played it.

Human designed encounters does not mean the encounters are necessarily good either. Just look at how uninspired the encounter design was in Baldur's Gate 3.

You have 0.0 hours in the game. You have zero credibility here.

Poo cows...

lol :P

@hardwenzen: 83 on metacritic is now "mostly negative"

Congratulations, you've de-evolved into the elusive, privative species known as "Clownicus Trollii", aka "Clown Troll"

Exactly. "Oh, this game is terrible! (but I logged 600 hours in it and got every achievement)".

I quit Baldur's Gate 3 after 5 hours - I found the turn based combat tedious. And, watching a dice roll take place to see if my speech options work was cute the first 8 times, but equally tedious after that. Maybe I'll go back to it if I'm bored this summer, but it certainly did not take me hundreds of hours of game play to figure that out.

@dabear said:

@hardwenzen: 83 on metacritic is now "mostly negative"

Congratulations, you've de-evolved into the elusive, privative species known as "Clownicus Trollii", aka "Clown Troll"

He is referring to Latest Reviews on Steam. Not overall (where it is mixed), latest. The ammount of cherrypicking to support a narrative is on par with the worst Twitter trolls I have seen.

@dabear said:

@hardwenzen: 83 on metacritic is now "mostly negative"

Congratulations, you've de-evolved into the elusive, privative species known as "Clownicus Trollii", aka "Clown Troll"

Really? I have the Mostly Negative in my gif, and you're still having trouble seeing where its coming from? No wonder you have 700h in the game, dabear.

Good to know. Now there are 500h+ people who are stating what i did before the game was released. How is this possible?🤡

Talk to us after you have more than 0.0 hours in Starfield.

@kvallyx said:

@hardwenzen said:

@kvallyx said:

You have 0.0 hours in the game. You have zero credibility here.

Good to know. Now there are 500h+ people who are stating what i did before the game was released. How is this possible?🤡

Talk to us after you have more than 0.0 hours in Starfield.

I don't need to, the whole youtube, the ones who've spent 50-600h in the game are repeating what i've been saying since launch😆

Who spends 600 hours playing a game they don't like?

I don't like to tar it all as universally bad.

I had a grand time with Elite: Dangerous, easily poured many dozens of hours into it.

That kind of scale and grandeur, where it feels like you are actually in an unpredictable universe of enormous scale is something can't really hand craft without help.

The ones that want to expose all its issues, and remind everyone how clueless Bathesda is.

@last_lap: Similar rules apply to YouTube and companies file DMCA takedowns all the time. YouTubers are generally terrified of getting strikes against their channel. Too many could result in your channel being shutdown. Not all companies police places like YouTube all that diligently though but some, especially Nintendo, do it with much gusto. Anyway when an uploader of a video blocks it’s viewership in different countries I believe it’s typically a company who is running that YouTube account. They generally know not to step on the toes of others who have the media rights to that content.

Yes starfield planet generation does suck. Most boring open area ever played. Currently lol 29 and once I got the ship I wanted it started to get really boring.

Sucks to starfield ship building and base is awesome.

But planet generation is what was wrong with the game.

Felt like space though being empty but it's game and doesn't have to be lol.

Planet generation in the game is awesome, and it's like real life. Desolate. And that is 900 of them. The other 100 planets are handcrafted and populated, and not generated. REAL nice Clark, REAL nice.