Yeah I probably need to preface a lot, generation tools are not bad by themselves hell I use them to a degree albeit sparingly. It's mostly stuff like procedural materials that I use that method for because it does the job so well. You're right that when it comes to a game as big scale as Skyrim it is justifiable to a degree.
However even with the generation there are ways you can design the game to make it interesting. You pointed out exactly what's wrong with these titles and many of them are simply low effort asset flips at best and they really are. It's gotten so bad now that I actually recognise and can point out to people the different assets the studios have likely used. There are youtubers online for example that can spot an indie asset flip a mile off and they pinpoint the exact Unreal 5 asset they downloaded or bought online which they're trying to claim is their own work.
It's sheer laziness, I've seen modders do far better jobs with outdated and buggy crap like the GECK. The cheek of them to not only claim the games are 'their' work ( when really it's not ) and charge $50+ for the privilege of playing is ridiculous. Even when the game isn't outright asset flipping if you look closely you can see often that they're shifting about internal 3D assets amongst themselves and re-using them. Nothing wrong with that practice by itself, because what's the point in re-modelling a crowbar for the 50th time? However that's all they ever do now they don't make anything new.
This sort of thing as well is why I'm not threatened in the least by AI being shoved into everything because it's just going to expose these lazy cash grab artists for what they are and make more uniquely designed games stand out.
In my previous comment I wasn't referring to asset flips so much as what I'd describe as a fairly lazy execution of height-map and terrain generator tools like World Creator. Assuming Capcom used something close to that kind of method
The tools can provide some incredible results but only if the developer knows how to plan ahead, utilize the results, scale it properly, and flesh out the details once it's shipped over to the actual engine/game.
The last step though is where I often see what I think you're describing, a half-assed use of mediocre assets that look rather out of place and repetitive. Another issue I've sometimes found is where they generate these large scaping landscapes but they don't put a lot of thought into planning ahead for unique and detailed locales (and factoring that into the geological design of the terrain). And this is of course not factoring in voxel terrain generation... which is a whole other ballgame.
One other thing with the asset flipping though is how the most frequently flipped assets are some of the cheapest you can find on a marketplace. Which is funny/sad in a way because there are artists/asset makers who put out some really stellar quality work, yet you'd be hard pressed to actually find it in many games because those artists aren't spitting out easily rehashed work that can be tossed into every which game.
Yeah I probably need to preface a lot, generation tools are not bad by themselves hell I use them to a degree albeit sparingly. It's mostly stuff like procedural materials that I use that method for because it does the job so well. You're right that when it comes to a game as big scale as Skyrim it is justifiable to a degree.
However even with the generation there are ways you can design the game to make it interesting. You pointed out exactly what's wrong with these titles and many of them are simply low effort asset flips at best and they really are. It's gotten so bad now that I actually recognise and can point out to people the different assets the studios have likely used. There are youtubers online for example that can spot an indie asset flip a mile off and they pinpoint the exact Unreal 5 asset they downloaded or bought online which they're trying to claim is their own work.
It's sheer laziness, I've seen modders do far better jobs with outdated and buggy crap like the GECK. The cheek of them to not only claim the games are 'their' work ( when really it's not ) and charge $50+ for the privilege of playing is ridiculous. Even when the game isn't outright asset flipping if you look closely you can see often that they're shifting about internal 3D assets amongst themselves and re-using them. Nothing wrong with that practice by itself, because what's the point in re-modelling a crowbar for the 50th time? However that's all they ever do now they don't make anything new.
This sort of thing as well is why I'm not threatened in the least by AI being shoved into everything because it's just going to expose these lazy cash grab artists for what they are and make more uniquely designed games stand out.
In my previous comment I wasn't referring to asset flips so much as what I'd describe as a fairly lazy execution of height-map and terrain generator tools like World Creator. Assuming Capcom used something close to that kind of method
The tools can provide some incredible results but only if the developer knows how to plan ahead, utilize the results, scale it properly, and flesh out the details once it's shipped over to the actual engine/game.
The last step though is where I often see what I think you're describing, a half-assed use of mediocre assets that look rather out of place and repetitive. Another issue I've sometimes found is where they generate these large scaping landscapes but they don't put a lot of thought into planning ahead for unique and detailed locales (and factoring that into the geological design of the terrain). And this is of course not factoring in voxel terrain generation... which is a whole other ballgame.
One other thing with the asset flipping though is how the most frequently flipped assets are some of the cheapest you can find on a marketplace. Which is funny/sad in a way because there are artists/asset makers who put out some really stellar quality work, yet you'd be hard pressed to actually find it in many games because those artists aren't spitting out easily rehashed work that can be tossed into every which game.