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The Controversy Over Bethesda's 'Game Engine' Is Misguided [Kotaku]
- Thread starter ToddBonzalez
- Start date
There are significant issues with Bethedsda games where it absolutely is the codebase though.
(Now I'm slightly concerned that "codebase" will be the next buzzword on they Youtube cycle :P)
It's not entirely misguided imo, because the framework the systems are built upon, the iterations over and over they've built upon has engrained into it a lot of the issues that have persisted.
You can not honestly tell me if they scraped it all and went to an entirely new engine that they would still have the physics tied to the frame rate and other problems that have existed through multiple games of theirs? That they'd purposely embed a new engine with these same problems? I wouldn't think so.
You can not honestly tell me if they scraped it all and went to an entirely new engine that they would still have the physics tied to the frame rate and other problems that have existed through multiple games of theirs? That they'd purposely embed a new engine with these same problems? I wouldn't think so.
This I didn't know.
Though it should be noted that a game is more than a graphics engine. Bethesda is quite correct in saying that their engine isn't Gamebryo. They have a lot of systems in their engine that core Gamebryo does not have. The issues they suffer has less to do with graphics, but rather the stuff that they added.
I'm not sure what to think of this article to be honest (saying that as a gamedev).
Of course Bethesda's engine evolves over time, but a lot of it reads like an apology for a company which is not really caring about improving their engine (or changing it if they really can't).
Then on top of that, saying that game engines don't have a default look for the most part is just plain wrong. That obviously doesn't mean you can't customize your engine to look different, but it's usually relatively easy to tell from a glance what game is using what. Less nowadays, thanks to better tools, which is great. An engine can evolve a lot "internally", in terms of tools, etc, but not necessarily in terms of output.
And those results shown in Bethesda games are not really due to ambition, especially as it implies that it's not possible to have good looking games with ambition, nor is it possible to do so without tons of bugs (some relatively simple and easy to see).
It would have been a lot more interesting to really explain what a game engine is and how it works (this is vague at best here, not even high-level) than this weird article defending Bethesda's Creation Engine's "evolution" (or rather lack of) over the years and speculating on its future. It's not really making a point.
Of course Bethesda's engine evolves over time, but a lot of it reads like an apology for a company which is not really caring about improving their engine (or changing it if they really can't).
Then on top of that, saying that game engines don't have a default look for the most part is just plain wrong. That obviously doesn't mean you can't customize your engine to look different, but it's usually relatively easy to tell from a glance what game is using what. Less nowadays, thanks to better tools, which is great. An engine can evolve a lot "internally", in terms of tools, etc, but not necessarily in terms of output.
And those results shown in Bethesda games are not really due to ambition, especially as it implies that it's not possible to have good looking games with ambition, nor is it possible to do so without tons of bugs (some relatively simple and easy to see).
It would have been a lot more interesting to really explain what a game engine is and how it works (this is vague at best here, not even high-level) than this weird article defending Bethesda's Creation Engine's "evolution" (or rather lack of) over the years and speculating on its future. It's not really making a point.
That is wildly missing the point of all the Bethesda criticism regardless if someone is using "engine" correctly or not.
This is the part of this conversation that is getting under my skin. I don't understand how you can see defects that persist across multiple titles more than a decade and tell me that engine / pipeline isn't compromised. Sure, players trying to shove 100% of defects under "jank" is misguided; a lot of the defects in Bethesda titles can be fixed within that game's cycle. Hell, tons of them are just basic scripting errors that have jack shit to do with their toolset. But there are definitely systemic issues here that would absolutely get addressed by rebuilding a new pipeline around a completely different core toolset, even if they might create new ones.
(Clinton voice) I guess it depends on what we mean by codebase...
The shitty art direction aside, most of the bugs I see strike me as bugs in gameplay scripts that didn't get caught in QA, and switching to some other engine probably isn't going to make the gameplay scripting any less janky.
I'm not saying the engine itself is without bugs in its own right, but I don't think when people complain about "bugs in the codebase" they're mostly meaning scripting bugs.
I don't know where it was sourced from, or if it was verified and still applies, but the information quoted in this post makes me think that the codebase has some fundamental flaws:
https://www.resetera.com/threads/th...s-misguided-kotaku.80983/page-3#post-14980961
So I am reading the other articles that are linked from the Kotaku article. They all mention that the engine is modified as well. I do not understand how the Kotaku article is much different other than trying to call them out for something that really isnt there. There is really no more information in the Kotaku article about what is changing than what is in the linked articles. Confused.
On one hand I think that it isn't reasonable to expect your average consumer to be able to root cause any given issue accurately, or from a distance. On the other, Bethesda in this case being the knowledgeable party, should be able to take those (misguided or not) complaints, and interpret and forward them correctly to those that can make the necessary changes to meet the level of quality that is expected of them.
Again no timings and tying something like physics to a capped frame rate is a configuration choice in most engines.
(Otherwise japanese studios wouldn't use Unreal for fighting games if they couldn't tie up damage to frame timings )
It's not the hammer the problem it's the blacksmith the problem here.
Technical debt and software rot (in this case active rot where continuing to modify software it begins to lose its integrity) is very much a thing. Lack of modernization, slapping on features, to lack of optimization, it gets tougher to do the longer it goes. So it can be very much both Bethesda's management and the engine causing problems.
Man, Schreier's really got a thorn in his side when it comes to YouTubers, huh...
Bethesda games being a buggy mess at launch is more the exception than the rule at this point, and I can't fault people for looking for something to blame it on when it keeps happening, again and again, despite the fact that Bethesda seems to put a lot of money into the games.
Bethesda games being a buggy mess at launch is more the exception than the rule at this point, and I can't fault people for looking for something to blame it on when it keeps happening, again and again, despite the fact that Bethesda seems to put a lot of money into the games.
Thanks, it's an interesting read. And yeah, it sounds like some of what they've added on in terms of modules they've had to add because of engine limitations, and the modules themselves are buggy.
So sure, an engine upgrade would let them throw out some of their work and use, say, a stock inverse kinematics setup or w/e. But if your QA processes are letting through a bunch of buggy extensions to Gamebryo you're probably going to end up letting through a bunch of buggy customizations to whatever engine you end up working with, honestly. You've just traded buggy IK for buggy-some-other-customization.
And god knows all of the gameplay scripting bugs are likely to continue apace. I still think the primary problem at BGS, aside from the appalling art, is a real deprioritization of QA and bug fixing in favor of a "the fanbase doesn't care" attitude.
Changing code in the engine to optimize performance for a given platform is integral to the enjoyment of set game; unfortunately Bethesda has a history of not optimizing their games for each platform. They also have a habit of shipping their games as is; which at times makes me wonder if they even have a QA team at all.
I think the reason why people want a 'new engine' is because they feel that a new engine with a positive track record on performance, optimization, scalability and visuals will allow Bethesda to focus on the game itself instead of the technical side. And I can't blame them. People want Bethesda to maximize the positive sides of their games while minimizing the negative parts. And while I do believe that a new engine can help alleviate and offset some of the problems, I am not 100% sure it will fix everything. Realistically speaking the option of a new engine is only even possible for The Elder Scrolls 6 as Starfield is already too far in development.
I think the reason why people want a 'new engine' is because they feel that a new engine with a positive track record on performance, optimization, scalability and visuals will allow Bethesda to focus on the game itself instead of the technical side. And I can't blame them. People want Bethesda to maximize the positive sides of their games while minimizing the negative parts. And while I do believe that a new engine can help alleviate and offset some of the problems, I am not 100% sure it will fix everything. Realistically speaking the option of a new engine is only even possible for The Elder Scrolls 6 as Starfield is already too far in development.
Yeah, I'm a senior software dev in a non-game field. I'm familiar with technical debt. I'm also familiar with the pitfalls of "we'll throw this shitheap out and get it right this time" project that just ends up trading bugs-you-knew-about for exciting-new-bugs-you-just-wrote, because you didn't address the underlying cultural and time pressures that keep you shipping bugs.
Oh man, fucking thank you for posting this article. I was genuinely planning on making a thread on here about how gamers don't seem to understand that engines are an iterative process and that Bethesda will update their Creation Engine to suit their games. People seem to latch onto the negatives like "iTs a gAmeBrYo fOrK!!!!" when they haven't even used it in a decade but with Fallout 4, BGS introduced
- Tiled Deferred Lighting
- Temporal Anti-Aliasing
- Screen Space Reflections
- Bokeh Depth of Field
- Screen Space Ambient Occlusion
- Height Fog
- Motion Blur
- Filmic Tonemapping
- Custom Skin and Hair Shading
- Dynamic Dismemberment using Hardware Tessellation
- Volumetric Lighting
- Gamma Correct Physically Based Shading
There's been a bunch of improvements BGS Austin have made to the Creation Engine and Creation Kit. It's what modders are comfortable with and I don't see Bethesda dropping it at all. Mod support is a huge part of their games and it's what increases the longevity of em'.
I've noticed on here that 'engine' is a catch-all term that gamers use to blame a game's poor textures or animations on without actually knowing what a game engine's purpose is or what it serves to do. It's the fucking worst when YouTubers who don't know shit just spew misinformation they read on here and other forums to justify their hate for a game. Thanks for this write-up.
That on the other hand is very much true.
An actual example you ask ? In Linux the display server that most distribution uses is named X11 sure when it comes to managing analog video it goes unbeaten and shines like mad. So why did the linux communities felt like they had to rebuild it from ground up by creating Wayland (basically very much the same theory the delivery being more modern) ?
Because configuring X11 has gotten arcany and very much unwieldy. Heck one of the reasons why the Linux team at Unity decided to adopt the SDL library is very much so that they don't have to deal with X11 directly and leave it to the SDL team to deal with "the old Linux black magic" .
So yes your code base can get messy and need a major overhaul so hardcore that you're better off starting from scratch all over again.
Yet that's not it in the case of Bethesda again Creation Engine isn't really to blame here . Again countless other games have been made with Gamebryo and didn't suffer any of the problems reproached to Bethesda.
So once again it's very much how the tool set is being used that's at stake here.
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Expecting the game to work well and being angry when its a janky mess isn't entitlement. You are entitled to a working product that you paid for.
This shit wouldn't fly in any other profession. If I sent any customers a product that was completely fucked at times and had a "Well shit, we (or the community) will just fix it later(maybe)!" attitude my ass would be out of a job and company would go under real quick. Try this nonsense attitude with manufacturing especially and you will see how insane it is to have.
Games are the only hobby/product I have ever seen where it is alright to sell something fucked up/unfinished...and people will defend it. Floors me every time.
And that is very cool and I love it when it happens. I know Cliffy B started this way and I did mention people in my posts that have done this.
But that does not make my argument rubbish. It is a false equivalency. Not every modder has gotten a job and at least in the case of the criticism against Bethesda I have not seen the modder scene get a legitimate job with them to help them fix the issues people say they have.
I still stand by them making a development decision be it good or bad and people are just armchair developing for them because they do not understand their software development cycle. If not why doesn't a modder apply or try to get their attention? Like you said it has worked in the past and Bethesada for better or worse has a very big and good modding scene. So again why?
It's not incorrect, though, and you're not disputing the example I gave despite reducing it to "moving forks and knives around." The description I gave is of a system that is incredibly complicated and is not replicated elsewhere. If you don't think it adds value to the games, that's totally fair, but that wasn't the point of contention you had with Vincent Grayson initially. So, honestly, our interaction feels acrimonious but upon re-reading I can't see how we're not in agreement on the core point, which is fine by me.
Because making games/programs is hard. I know that sounds like an oversimplification. But it is true. There is no other place where you make abstract things that you control virtually and have to maneuver in that orientation. They will always be able to be broken in some sense. How much is acceptable is up to the individual.
Yeah, I am out after this comment because no one seems to understand my point.
I am not saying that is entitlement at all. I have said in most of my posts that the criticism is valid.
Saying this shit doesn't fly in any other profession is such a naive argument. You'd be surprised how much shit flies in different industries, how people cut corners because of time and budget. This statement is just very ignorant in my opinion.
The product Bethesda has released is not completely fucked up and that is just hyperbole.
Have you never seen a movie? A TV show? Have you used other kinds of software not related to gaming? Music? This happens in all of those industries/mediums. Again you have to be very naive to say what you have said. Maybe you are young and don't have real experience but if you are a working adult you should knows this happens a lot.
Just mentioning it is not dismissing criticism, that is valid. But assuming it is a lazy thing, an easy fix, they should know better? that is where the entitlement starts because it lacks the perspective of their work,.
None of these address the core issues with the engine.
These are mostly rendering features, one cannot just make a laundry list of rendering features. The quality of the implementation is also important.
If you wanted to mention something they did to the core , you could have mentioned their multithreading updates to the engine. But in this case adding this was very much running in place, as core engine features seem to burn CPU cycles while doing nothing useful.
This seems to be a clear cut case of technical debt, where improvements only exist to soak up long standing architectural defects. They could fix the cause of the defect, but as they have added things on top they can't.
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This is a totally valid point.
The performance issues are the result of tracking more than any of their peers do, way more in fact. To me, that's an absurd decision to make. I feel most people would favour more robust performance over a bucket still being where you left it after fifty hours, but it is their call to make, and people can't get enough of their games, so maybe I'm wrong.
This is also an issue that may subside naturally as we have more memory available. Although it still happens on PC where RAM is as plentiful as your money.
I fully agree with both aspects of this (having done software development for over a decade now and seen -- and sometimes been responsible for -- excesses in either direction).
But there are some persistent classes of problems with every Bethesda game since Oblivion at least that I assume would have been fixed by now if they could be fixed by anything other than a major revision of some core components.
What the flying fuck are you on about? How is the article in the OP defending corporate interests in any way? He's trying to deal with the issue of a game's engine being used as a catch-all scapegoat for all technical criticisms and the misinformation that comes from doing that.
What are you even going on about? The problem isn't lack of people or lack of some special "secret modder" knowledge, they simply lack good decision making. They don't need a modder to come in and show them how to get proper widescreen support or whatever, they know -- or can hopefully figure out -- how to do it.
They just refuse to, presumably because the market pressure isn't there to get even something trivial fixed, much less larger issues.
That's what happens with every engine. Unreal engine 4 still has legacy code from the original UE after all
I'm laughing my ass off of the people saying Jason is defending the interest of the corporate involved. The corporate being BETHESDA of all gaming corporations.
Jesus christ. Good article that you guys completely took out of context, but ok.
Jesus christ. Good article that you guys completely took out of context, but ok.
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Really think we are arguing symantics here. I don't see what's misleading about describing the culmination of the software an engine even though it really is a bit more then that. Yes things can be moved changed fixed, the fear is the probability of reiteration of the no so great parts being built on top of rather then being built from the ground up. Do we really expect people to take the time to do a technical break down of the entire engine just to voice an opinion? I don't think any one is wrong here per say but wouldn't it be better to segway this into talking about people's concerns rather then summarize that an engine is made of multiple parts and calling out other outlets?
I feel like I can't call my car a car anymore because it's really a combination of mechanical and electronic parts.
I feel like I can't call my car a car anymore because it's really a combination of mechanical and electronic parts.
His article is simply arguing semantics. Substitute "engine" for "collection of software and tools with inspiration from past iterations" and the dissatisfaction with Bethesda's products remains unchanged.
With that said, I do think the scope of a Bethesda game in concert with budget and/or deadlines have much to do with all the bugs, so I agree with him in that regard.
With that said, I do think the scope of a Bethesda game in concert with budget and/or deadlines have much to do with all the bugs, so I agree with him in that regard.
Especially considering he wrote an article about Rockstar working conditions not too long ago and remained as unbiased as you possibly can in that situation.
He's asking for proper nuance to gamer outrage. And honestly, he's not wrong to do so.
But at the same time, he's basing a lot of impressions off of gamer youtube culture (and comments) which isn't a fair representation. Assassins Creed was a critical and commercial success that fans of the franchise enjoyed. So ultimately, its a vocal minority of gamers he's addressing that has very little purchasing power.
Unless you fuck shit up so much like Battlefront 2.
The issue is that people's complaints are basically making the pitchforks turn to the wrong problem. if you want to blame the jank of the games, blame bethesda directly and their investment into making it significantly better, not the engine that they decide to use. People automatically hear new engine and think everything is overhauled when its not exactly the case. It depends on the effort the dev puts in.
Let alone the fact that Bethesda has Kotaku blacklisted for a few years now.
I've been in my profession for 15 years. I understand cutting corners when you have to but due to the fact people's lives depend on my code and products being right the first time because thats all you have, perhaps my point of view is a bit skewed.
Maybe that is my problem, I expect everyone to have the same quality standards I do and I get frustrated when things I pay for don't.
Well we will agree to disagree on this one. Take care.
I remember when I saw Oblivion for the first time or even Skyrim for that matter. They looked great, there was something special about it.
I'd hate for TES VI to begin and my first thought being "well.... this doesn't look too great at all." the game industry isn't sitting still and every year insanely good looking games come out. But BGS isn't gonna keep up. I want to be impressed about visuals in a BGS game again.
Hopefully all these worries are for nothing and the jump will at least be like going from Fallout 3 to 4. It sure as hell should be. We're talking about a game that will release when we're like halfway into next gen, maybe even further.
I'd hate for TES VI to begin and my first thought being "well.... this doesn't look too great at all." the game industry isn't sitting still and every year insanely good looking games come out. But BGS isn't gonna keep up. I want to be impressed about visuals in a BGS game again.
Hopefully all these worries are for nothing and the jump will at least be like going from Fallout 3 to 4. It sure as hell should be. We're talking about a game that will release when we're like halfway into next gen, maybe even further.
I guess I'm assuming that whatever license they have with Gamebryo gives them full rights to customize the thing such that if they had the will to, they could ship-of-theseus the entire thing, and keep replacing core components until it was the same engine only in some abstract philosophical sense. You may well be right though, maybe they're limited in how much of that core they can get at.
So stick with what's comfortable because it sells instead of trying to improve. Got it.
In the end it's a product which they are trying to sell. If they can still sell an amount they want with the same amount of effort whatever. Just means I sadly will not buy any more of their games.
Do you have a source for this, because I really think this list gets at the heart of the "engine" issue here.