Why was the UI such a big issue for the devs? UI over budget?

How did the UI get over budget? Why so many issues with a simple thing as that?

was it the plus menu? Or the game menu?

there wasn’t even a scoreboard until later on.

discussion

MortalitasWolf
4 years ago
@WedgeTornado It's not the UI specifically. It's more the way the engine handles the UI. I fear Frostbite isn't going to be around much longer, it seems that it's becoming too difficult to develop on and they'll probably switch to something like UE5.

25 Replies

edgecrusherO0
Seasoned Ace
4 years ago
@RayD_O1 wrote:

As a matter of interest how long have DICE been using the Frostbite engine.?
Since the early days, I believe. But it went from a focused engine for BF and other shooters into EA's "everything" engine used across all games (sports, racing, action, shooter, etc.) that's grown into quite the hydra over the years.
And it comes with years of reporting on teams struggling to work with the engine that's apparently notoriously difficult to work with - compared to trying to build a sand-castle in a sandbox of hypodermic needles - and breaking extremely easily.
RayD_O1
Hero
4 years ago
@edgecrusherO0 wrote:
@RayD_O1 wrote:

As a matter of interest how long have DICE been using the Frostbite engine.?
Since the early days, I believe. But it went from a focused engine for BF and other shooters into EA's "everything" engine used across all games (sports, racing, action, shooter, etc.) that's grown into quite the hydra over the years.
And it comes with years of reporting on teams struggling to work with the engine that's apparently notoriously difficult to work with - compared to trying to build a sand-castle in a sandbox of hypodermic needles - and breaking extremely easily.
Good info, thanks, kinda makes me wonder why they have persevered with it for so long if it's so complex / quirky.
edgecrusherO0
Seasoned Ace
4 years ago
@RayD_O1 Sunk-cost fallacy. EA has invested too much into the engine to admit that maybe further investment isn't a good idea.

I think it's no mistake that their most successful games outside of sports titles (carried by brands and the genre itself) and Sims are all largely coming out of Respawn...who are specifically not using Frostbite for any of their games, but instead Source and Unreal Engine. That or maybe Respawn are just a better run studio with more competent developers, but I don't think that's a comparison that's fair to the in-the-trenches devs at DICE.
OskooI_007
Legend
4 years ago
@RayD_O1 wrote:
@OskooI_007
Eye opening indeed and maybe goes some way to explaining why everything seems to take so long.

As a matter of interest how long have DICE been using the Frostbite engine.?
Frostbite debuted in 2008 with Bad Company. After Bad Company 2, EA decided to use Frostbite for most of their in-house games. Shortly after Battlefield 3, EA made the Frostbite engine team their own seperate entity no longer part of DICE studio.
After Battlefield V the lead rendering architect of Frostbite Johan Andersson (aka repi), left EA to become a stake holder and CTO at Embark Studios with former EA Executive Patrick Sunderland.
Frostbite is a great game engine, but the editor and dev tools sound difficult to work with. Jim said he doesn't understand why EA doesn't use more off the self software for the dev tools.
RayD_O1
Hero
4 years ago
@OskooI_007 @edgecrusherO0
Thanks guys for the detailed replies, I suppose only time will tell how the next BF will pan out, what engine it will use and who will be working on it.

Whatever transpires I for one hope that there are brighter times ahead for the BF franchise and this community eventually gets the game they deserve.