When is the next patch coming

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@onemadvagabond wrote:

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@JucieN7 wrote:

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@onemadvagabond wrote:

@hedop85

I really think that they don't really know how to handle the situation.  The game was obviously made by numerous groups who didn't communicate with one another before they put it all together.  That would explain the difference in quality from one part of the game to the other.  The fact that things are constantly out of order in conversations etc.  The games relevancy died when they ended up with a 4.8 average user metacritic rating, and now, with EA fully in charge, they are probably trying to decide if they should do just enough to partially save a once great franchise, or milk the remainder for what they can get out of it and then the game will be nothing but a multi-player online game in the near future, full of annoying twelve year old's with zero parental supervision and have discovered foul language.

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I think you are right.

Your last sentence scares me ☹️ I know its possible, but I hope they will work things out.

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It scares everyone but fanboys who are the one's who spend their days online talking to each other like the Jimmy DeSanta character from GTAV.  Look at how many bought up franchises EA has done that to.  Nearly everything they sell now has to have an always online connection and many have been pushed into straight up online only games, or with extremely limited single player.  They tried to force people to have to play online multiplayer with this game before it was released with all that strike team stuff.  It's all about micro-transactions for money.  Nickle and dime people for as much money as possible.  This time however, they backed off at the last minute because of the outrage they received.

The poor writing and massive plot holes ect. proves that single player for this game is becoming an after thought.  The problem for them though, is that they not only screwed up single player, but they completely dropped the ball on online multiplayer as well.  The game has great potential, and if Bioware and EA had people who weren't only interested in money and political ideology, this would have been one of the best games of all time, but instead it's mired in mediocrity.

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The main problem ist that this model in unfeasible and everyone who knows anything about games knows that. The MMO market is pretty maxed out as it is. You won't take WoW's title and Destiny is still going strong. If even huge names like Star Wars and Star Trek basically had to go full free2play just to get enough people to survive it's just unfeasible to go in with a half hearted attempt. Furthermore there is still a massive market for single player games as shown by Zelda, Zero Dawn Horizon, TW3 etc. all those games sold and sell massive amounts of units with none or very limited Multiplayer experiences. Nobody is going to buy ME or DA for Multiplayer modes. It just doesn't make sense. The hallmarks of RPG's and even story driven shooters are a massive open world and  between 50 and 100 hours of game time or even more. If you can't deliver that or 80% of the timeframe you deliver is basically filled with throwaway MMO quests you will go under.

Fallout 4 received good reviews but nobody considers it a standart bearer anymore. It's okaish for what it is but ask any reviewer and they will tell you the genre references. For Anything Roleplay related it's: The Witcher 3, Zero Dawn Horizon, Zelda and possibly in bits and pieces still Skyrim. Anything below that mark will never ever reach above an 85, anything that still feels like 2010, so DA:I, ME:A will seriously have trouble scoring above a 70 nowadays. Reviewers and players are tired of * especially when they have seen it done better in terms of support from the developer, communication, value for money and in general in terms of how good a game can be nowadays without just being a benchmark test for how good it can look. People are tired of climbing towers or thousands of collectibles. Look how Mafia 3 got savaged by the press and that was a massive and beloved franchise. It got killed and nobody heard a word about it since. The same can be said for Batman Arkham Knight. It was shoddy, the gameplay was idiotic and people hated it.

That is what suprises me the most... you have a company which has been burned several times (worst company in the world title etc.) and which people has been given the puppy protection for DA:I because people said: okay it's the first time they really tried open world... so we will give them a pass in certain aspects... but instead of saying: alright let's get it right they said: ah alright so basically lazy writing, quest design and always doing the same quest and running from loading screen to loading screen is cool. Okay let's stick to that then. You have to wonder what kind of morons are in charge of that company to think like that.

@hedop85

The one difference between this game and the RPG's you mentioned that are still going strong and receiving good reviews is EA.

seems so...

I read an article about production costs.

MEA is listed with about 40 Mio $ whereas Witcher 3 is listed with 72 Mio $. Well that explains why some potential is not used or seem shallow.

But I am not an expert on game development or something related, just a fan who loves to get away from reality. Maybe I am a bit naive.

EDIT: typos

Don't underrate your criticism capabilities.

We don't need to have a degree on Astrophysics to be affected by gamma rays. No matter if we have limited knowledge of it, we know there's something amiss.

@JucieN7

Yes, they spent less money on this game, but I tend to believe that it's shortcomings are tied more to the decisions made and not money.  How is it that some of the writing is really good while other parts are obviously completely lazy.  It had to have been parted out to different groups and then just pieced together with very little thought to flow and how everything ties together overall.

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@onemadvagabond wrote:

Yes, they spent less money on this game, but I tend to believe that it's shortcomings are tied more to the decisions made and not money. 

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My thoughts exactly.Also, there was a great deal for marketing as well ... that part was tremendously effective.

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@onemadvagabond wrote:

@JucieN7

Yes, they spent less money on this game, but I tend to believe that it's shortcomings are tied more to the decisions made and not money.  How is it that some of the writing is really good while other parts are obviously completely lazy.  It had to have been parted out to different groups and then just pieced together with very little thought to flow and how everything ties together overall.

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I agree to that. But with less money you are forced to get some groups more money and some less...so that some are better and other just flat.

But sure the decision that were made, no matter the reasons behind them, are the main cause for the MEA we have now

Well the production cost is determined by several factors. Firstly I'm not exactly sure that the Witcher 3 cost 72 Mio, I would need a source for that. That seems pretty excessive tbh especially if you consider that CDPR is basically a one trick pony in that their only game is the Witcher Franchise and they have never had sales as big as that so I wouldn't even know where they could get the capital from... nevertheless if that is true you also have to consider things like: how long did EA actually spend on that game? TW3 was in developement for ages and it showed. Secondly how much do they pay? That also effects the quality of the work.

There are other factors but I agree with panda... it's how you spend that money and tbh to me it's still surprising that a small time company like CDPR managed to spend their money on their first project of this scale so much better than EA with years and years of experience. It's a testament to their lack of professionalism and knowledge.

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@PandaTar wrote:

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@onemadvagabond wrote:

Yes, they spent less money on this game, but I tend to believe that it's shortcomings are tied more to the decisions made and not money. 

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My thoughts exactly.Also, there was a great deal for marketing as well ... that part was tremendously effective.

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And that is where my argument comes into play for certain people who are telling others that they need to just shut up about the games shortcomings and wait for fixes etc.  All the marketing and the hype generated by EA and Bioware made certain promises and those promises came up way short as far as expectations are concerned.  I won't argue that the game is somewhat enjoyable on some levels, but many people who have zero problem with the game obviously have not been fans of the franchise and do not comprehend what truly made it great.  That would be the story and the immersion you felt while interacting with even the most basic npc characters who seemed to have nothing to really do with the overall story, but it all tied together.  Nothing ties together in this game.  So many interactions are just little filler missions or conversations that go nowhere and feel empty at the end.

Well the article mentioned that a big part of W3's budget got into marketing.

But sure I don't know if this is true.
And I agree CDPR have done an awesome job especially when comparing to a big established company like EA

I see a lot of mention of certain games and how they drew the player in with story, dialogue and animations, gameplay etc.  One that I think needs mentioning is The Last of Us.  I feel that game set a pretty high bar comparable to the original ME trilogy.  Of course, as far as I can find, TLoU had a pretty high budget.

Definitely agree. However I think there are even smaller productions out of whose book you could take a leaf or two. I mean Pillars of Eternity showed people that "old school" RPGs with crappy graphics still draw a lot of people if you get the story right and actually engage in what your community wants. (Tbh I never understood the limit to 2 squadmates... I mean sure on the old systems it might have been to taxing otherwise but seriously? Nowadays? You can throw like 50 opponents my way but I still have to pick instead of going with a full team of 5 or 6?) Or take other games of a completely different genre. Take Dangaronpa or Zero Escape. They are both visual novels with absolutely crazy stories but the story telling itself is so well handled and so tight that they just suck you in no matter how utterly ridiculous their settings seems to be at first and both were massive hits. Or take Shenmue in it's day or the Persona series.

There are loads and loads of amazing games that show you how storytelling is done and how that can overshadow even the shitties of graphics and even the weirdest of plots enough to make you forget about them and just absolutely suck you in. I also don't get how a game with the topic of establishing settlements can be so utterly tonedeaf in not letting you actually build the settlements yourself, give you some form of management control over them and have several quests associated with it. I mean are they blind? DA:O, DA:I, PoE, Neverwinter Nights 2, Fallout 4, Skyrim etc. all of them showed one thing: players want to have a home base and want to build that thing up. How on earth can you reduce the task of managing and setting up those vital outposts to pressing a button and waiting for a drop ship?`Let me choose the site, let me decide how the setup will look, let me decide what kind of base I want, maybe even upgrade them, let me decide where the living quarters will be. Give me something to do with those settlements besides: yeah cool, I built them and now the spot on the map is blue and not white anymore. I rule!!!! That just doesn't cut it in this day and age. Why can't I customize my ship in some way? At least let me paint it. Or allow me to upgrade it to a more sciency vessel or to a more military vessel and maybe change the story around that choice. I mean there are soooo many possibilites for little stuff that wouldn't have to change the whole narrative but would make this game more worthwhile.

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@hedop85 wrote:

Definitely agree. However I think there are even smaller productions out of whose book you could take a leaf or two. I mean Pillars of Eternity showed people that "old school" RPGs with crappy graphics still draw a lot of people if you get the story right and actually engage in what your community wants. (Tbh I never understood the limit to 2 squadmates... I mean sure on the old systems it might have been to taxing otherwise but seriously? Nowadays? You can throw like 50 opponents my way but I still have to pick instead of going with a full team of 5 or 6?) Or take other games of a completely different genre. Take Dangaronpa or Zero Escape. They are both visual novels with absolutely crazy stories but the story telling itself is so well handled and so tight that they just suck you in no matter how utterly ridiculous their settings seems to be at first and both were massive hits. Or take Shenmue in it's day or the Persona series.

There are loads and loads of amazing games that show you how storytelling is done and how that can overshadow even the shitties of graphics and even the weirdest of plots enough to make you forget about them and just absolutely suck you in. I also don't get how a game with the topic of establishing settlements can be so utterly tonedeaf in not letting you actually build the settlements yourself, give you some form of management control over them and have several quests associated with it. I mean are they blind? DA:O, DA:I, PoE, Neverwinter Nights 2, Fallout 4, Skyrim etc. all of them showed one thing: players want to have a home base and want to build that thing up. How on earth can you reduce the task of managing and setting up those vital outposts to pressing a button and waiting for a drop ship?`Let me choose the site, let me decide how the setup will look, let me decide what kind of base I want, maybe even upgrade them, let me decide where the living quarters will be. Give me something to do with those settlements besides: yeah cool, I built them and now the spot on the map is blue and not white anymore. I rule!!!! That just doesn't cut it in this day and age. Why can't I customize my ship in some way? At least let me paint it. Or allow me to upgrade it to a more sciency vessel or to a more military vessel and maybe change the story around that choice. I mean there are soooo many possibilites for little stuff that wouldn't have to change the whole narrative but would make this game more worthwhile.

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You could also take the original ME trilogy and put it in that camp as well.

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@JucieN7 wrote:

seems so...

I read an article about production costs.

MEA is listed with about 40 Mio $ whereas Witcher 3 is listed with 72 Mio $. Well that explains why some potential is not used or seem shallow.

But I am not an expert on game development or something related, just a fan who loves to get away from reality. Maybe I am a bit naive.

EDIT: typos

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To my knowledge there isn't a single credible source when it comes to how much ME:A cost to develop. The 40M USD is a number conjured from thin air and really should stop being circulated.

It is been happening more often than not, games disguising shallow mechanics with fancy graphics. I'll pick mechanics over fake make-up all the way.

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@PandaTar wrote:

It is been happening more often than not, games disguising shallow mechanics with fancy graphics. I'll pick mechanics over fake make-up all the way.

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That's been the name of the game ever since the transition from floppy disks to CDs.  They put a fraction of the time into story and mechanics and just try to make it pretty instead.

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@hedop85 wrote:

Well the production cost is determined by several factors. Firstly I'm not exactly sure that the Witcher 3 cost 72 Mio, I would need a source for that. That seems pretty excessive tbh especially if you consider that CDPR is basically a one trick pony in that their only game is the Witcher Franchise and they have never had sales as big as that so I wouldn't even know where they could get the capital from... nevertheless if that is true you also have to consider things like: how long did EA actually spend on that game? TW3 was in developement for ages and it showed. Secondly how much do they pay? That also effects the quality of the work.

There are other factors but I agree with panda... it's how you spend that money and tbh to me it's still surprising that a small time company like CDPR managed to spend their money on their first project of this scale so much better than EA with years and years of experience. It's a testament to their lack of professionalism and knowledge.

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Just the basic pre-DLC Witcher 3 costed about 81M$, and was in development for 3.5 years. CDPR was very open with the development process as You can read e.g. here: https://www.gamespot.com/articles/this-is-how-much-the-witcher-3-cost-to-make/1100-6430409/

[advertise mode]

CDPR originated as CDP, which was a publisher for a huge number of games in Poland (like original Baldur's Gate for example, but also Mass Effect 1), and was actually quite famous for their fantastic localizations. They were also responsible for GOG, which while not the biggest digital game distributor (that would be Steam, right?) is growing in significance for many year, and started with a nice premise of no DMR, and with idea of bringing back many old titles adapted to modern machines. Eventually, while Witcher 1 was not as famous world-wide it was absolutely adored in Poland, and CDPR immediately gained huge number of fans with the game and with their very open and pro-gamers approach (e.g. when they released Enhanced Edition for W1 they offered it for free to all the people who had previously bought the original game - and please note that at that time those games were mainly offered on CDs rather than with digital copies). Witcher 2 was even greater hit since the engine CDPR developed was recognized globally as limit-breaking (or computer requirements breaking...), almost-state-of-the-art at that time. Both Witcher 1 and Witcher 2 were moddable, and actually there are quite a few mini-adventures for Witcher 1 created by fans and other parties, some of them even incorporated in the current digital releases. With Witcher 3 CDPR proved that they are always eager to change and grow better with each successive game - W3 is a masterpiece comparable to some past breakthrough-cRPGs like Fallout 1 and 2 or Plansescape: Torment. Sure, W3 is not *perfect*, and there are some issues with it that many people are unhappy with, but there is no denying that both the game and Devs set some new standards for the genre, and that many AAA competitors are not even *hoping* to meet those standards with their current titles...

[/advertise mode]

So yes, CDPR is not as "fresh" and "poor" and "out of nowhere" as some would assume, but still it is surprising that so few other companies are *truly* interested in learning by the good example...   :-(

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@Kondaru wrote:

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@hedop85 wrote:

Well the production cost is determined by several factors. Firstly I'm not exactly sure that the Witcher 3 cost 72 Mio, I would need a source for that. That seems pretty excessive tbh especially if you consider that CDPR is basically a one trick pony in that their only game is the Witcher Franchise and they have never had sales as big as that so I wouldn't even know where they could get the capital from... nevertheless if that is true you also have to consider things like: how long did EA actually spend on that game? TW3 was in developement for ages and it showed. Secondly how much do they pay? That also effects the quality of the work.

There are other factors but I agree with panda... it's how you spend that money and tbh to me it's still surprising that a small time company like CDPR managed to spend their money on their first project of this scale so much better than EA with years and years of experience. It's a testament to their lack of professionalism and knowledge.

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Just the basic pre-DLC Witcher 3 costed about 81M$, and was in development for 3.5 years. CDPR was very open with the development process as You can read e.g. here: https://www.gamespot.com/articles/this-is-how-much-the-witcher-3-cost-to-make/1100-6430409/

[advertise mode]

CDPR originated as CDP, which was a publisher for a huge number of games in Poland (like original Baldur's Gate for example, but also Mass Effect 1), and was actually quite famous for their fantastic localizations. They were also responsible for GOG, which while not the biggest digital game distributor (that would be Steam, right?) is growing in significance for many year, and started with a nice premise of no DMR, and with idea of bringing back many old titles adapted to modern machines. Eventually, while Witcher 1 was not as famous world-wide it was absolutely adored in Poland, and CDPR immediately gained huge number of fans with the game and with their very open and pro-gamers approach (e.g. when they released Enhanced Edition for W1 they offered it for free to all the people who had previously bought the original game - and please note that at that time those games were mainly offered on CDs rather than with digital copies). Witcher 2 was even greater hit since the engine CDPR developed was recognized globally as limit-breaking (or computer requirements breaking...), almost-state-of-the-art at that time. Both Witcher 1 and Witcher 2 were moddable, and actually there are quite a few mini-adventures for Witcher 1 created by fans and other parties, some of them even incorporated in the current digital releases. With Witcher 3 CDPR proved that they are always eager to change and grow better with each successive game - W3 is a masterpiece comparable to some past breakthrough-cRPGs like Fallout 1 and 2 or Plansescape: Torment. Sure, W3 is not *perfect*, and there are some issues with it that many people are unhappy with, but there is no denying that both the game and Devs set some new standards for the genre, and that many AAA competitors are not even *hoping* to meet those standards with their current titles...

[/advertise mode]

So yes, CDPR is not as "fresh" and "poor" and "out of nowhere" as some would assume, but still it is surprising that so few other companies are *truly* interested in learning by the good example...   :-(

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Of course they were fresh. Witcher 1 was an absolute niche game, even though it was critically acclaimed. Witcher 2 was not as acclaimed but sold better due to way better graphics and some major improvements (Witcher 1 is basically unplayable these days from the looks department... it gives you eye cancer, even though I love the game, and it had tons and tons and tons of loading screns). None of these games sold extremely well. The Witcher 3 outsold both combined games which had been around for quite some time handily within the first 3 months... So yes comapre TW3 in size and scope and sophistication and compared to any other company that produced games this size Bioware/EA, Obsidian, Rockstar, 2k, Ubisoft etc. they were absolute fresh kids on the block. Especially since this was the first time that they undertook to port their games to consoles straight away and not with delay. It was their biggest launch to date. Sure they have been around for some time but that's just absolutely not comparable in scope, especially if you consider the numbers they shipped before or the "impact" of their games to that point.

Furthermore, yes they were poor. Again comparibly so. CDP/CDPR wasn't really the publisher per se. They were more or less the distributor of those games as they weren't available in Poland or the Eastern European market and neither was a proper translation. So those guys took a gamble, asked for the rights to publish those games in these markets with a high risk/high reward deal and came up "big" again for POLAND. We aren't talking about 20 mio sold copies of Baldurs Gate in Poland here. We aren't even talking about the size of the German market. Poland was much poorer back in those days, much less developed. When the US and most of the western European states had the internet the Polish didn't in large parts. They were lagging behind around 5-10 years in that department and the market was not well served because of that. So a big and well known game in the gamers community like Baldurs Gate sold like hot potatoes. But you have to put that in perspective. They made a few 10.000 Dollars with those deals each. We aren't talking about them raking in millions. TW1 sold fairly decently for what it was. Again: we aren't talking 10 or 20 mio sales. TW2 sold decently: again no 20 Mio Sales. Both combined eventually sold around 15-20 Mio copies. Numbers vary but that includes deals like get one for free and what not or get the games basically dirt cheap. So we are not talking about a company that had assets of several millions or even hundreds of millions. Again they made a risky deal because they believed in their product and worked very hard for it to succeed. They went partially public to get some more more financial basis but still, I would figure they probably had to get loans ans security of maybe 20-40 mio to make the game. It paid off massively.

All that said: of course they weren't some backwater village nerd and his friend. Compared to some German game developers like BlueByte and Ascaron or JoWood from Austria or others who reached their zenith in the 90's they are huge. But compared to EA? Rockstar? 2k? Ubisoft? Sony? Nintendo? compared to them they are a * joke and green behind the ears. Hell CDPR tried to buy back their own shares because they feared a company like EA could swoop in and simply buy them out. So please, we might disagree, but do not make the mistake of putting them in the same category as those guys because they are not and that would undersell their achievement as well.

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@hedop85 wrote:

Of course they were fresh. Witcher 1 was an absolute niche game, even though it was critically acclaimed. (...) Furthermore, yes they were poor. Again comparibly so. (...) All that said: of course they weren't some backwater village nerd and his friend. Compared to some German game developers like BlueByte and Ascaron or JoWood from Austria or others who reached their zenith in the 90's they are huge. But compared to EA? Rockstar? 2k? Ubisoft? Sony? Nintendo? compared to them they are a * joke and green behind the ears. Hell CDPR tried to buy back their own shares because they feared a company like EA could swoop in and simply buy them out. So please, we might disagree, but do not make the mistake of putting them in the same category as those guys because they are not and that would undersell their achievement as well.

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You are excluding GOG from the equation, and it is confirmed that it brought dozens of millions of $ to CDP long prior to Witcher 3...

...but sure, You are right that CDPR is not the same league as EA or other major companies, and that they gambled a lot with each of their games. Maybe that is the thing? When You are putting all Your money on the project, and risk all You have, then You are more invested and care more to spend all those pennies well? It makes You care more for potential buyers?

It seems universal that majority of all the memorable titles were developed by relatively small and self-driven companies, while all the "blockbuster" game developers are well versed in merchandising but otherwise rarely deliver above mediocre?   :-(

I guarantee the hold up is the balancing part of the patch. Not to say I wouldn't mind at least somewhat of a teaser in what's coming next and a general time table of when to expect it. I figure that they're still analyzing mp specifically and testing out numbers for guns/powers. I feel like they don't have to bundle so much in one patch but i think that's what they're doing.

Judging on how they released patches for DA:I, we probably won't see the next patch until next month. Plus look at all they have to do. They can't magically make make another patch pop out in two weeks with all that they said they're working on. It takes time...you just gotta be patient. Hang in there.

I'd be very surprised if they did do another patch this month.

you also have to take into consideration that more often then naught bigger usually means less efficient to boot.