If you gonna be all that happy, noncritical with unfinished bug riddled game how do you think WH is gonna take it?

Gameplay
#145

Yep. This is the negative trending I’ve been jabbering about for weeks now. :roll_eyes: The game is fast losing traction among PC gamers. Interest in the game has exponentially dropped starting the 3rd week of release (where the bugs started kicking in). And for those PC gamers that bothered to post a review, nearly 1/3 gamers posted a negative review back in March. As of april, this has increased to about 50%. So customer reviews suggest significantly less PC gamers are playing KCD with nearly half the gamers giving it a negative rating as of April.

Biggest deal breaker to date are the patches/hotfixes with 1.41 leading the way on that. Second biggest complaint split between graphics pop out, broken quests, and irritating game mechanics (like the punitive save-schnapps and/or save-bed feature. The latter which is seems to be completely broken on PC). Apparently, the hotfix/ 1.4.1 update didn’t completely address these issues (or created new ones like the broken Teresa courtship quest). So I suspect this may be the reason for the increased number of negative Steam reviews.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/379430/Kingdom_Come_Deliverance/#app_reviews_hash

image
image.png890×448 30.4 KB

BTW: As of today, KCD ranks #82 on Steams Top 100 list. Xbox doesn’t have a dedicated game tracker the way Steam and other PC sites do. The closest thing indicating the extent of console player engagement are Xbox feedback ratings from here. About 1/3 Xbox gamers rated it 3 or less stars. So that’s very similar to PC stats:

No idea what the trend is on PS4 side. But if PS4 gamer enthusiasm is anything like PC, then that doesn’t bode well for KCD.

Based on those (very speculative) stats, I’m starting to wonder if they were able to break even on the cost of producing the game. Varva said the cost was about $36M. If they haven’t achieved that milestone then bug fixing, QA/QC and tech support for the game just got that much more challenging to do.

#146

Enthusiasm quickly vanished when people saw they paid 60 bucks for a game still in very early alpha stage, and they were forced to play the role of beta testers themselves. I don’t even think this game was ever properly betatested by Warhorse before the release.

People are abandoning the sinking ship because they dont like to wait weeks and weeks for a patch and then finding out it broke their progress even more, and then hear developers or fanboys always say “wait for next patch” like in an endless loop.

Fanboys to defend the game from criticism will argue that “even Skyrim at day 1 was unplayable”. True. But real fact is that in Skyrim you could reset or bypass or fix quests and events using console commands easily. If an event wasn’t triggering or a NPC related to a quest wasnt showing up, you just had to type the command and problem was fixed. In KCD you cannot do that at all. If you are stuck on a main broken quest you just have to stop and wait “for next patch” as usual.

And i dont even think the people who left the game will ever return in a future. It’s frustrating and painful to see your progress broken after hundreds of hours you’ve been playing, and find out you probably have to restart a new run again from scratch. What are people supposed to do? Restart the game anytime a new patch comes out, and maybe get stuck in a new bugs or game breaking stuff all over again?

I like the realistic historical setting of the game in an open world adventure-rpg, it’s what probably is holding me back from uninstalling the game forever and say f××k you to developers. But most people just will get over KCD once and for all and will never buy a Warhorse game ever again. Disappointment’s too big here.

3 Likes
#147

I think we will have to see about WH’s future. KCD has much to offer that you can’t find easily in other games.
I complain about bugs on this forum almost everyday but still I play KCD - almost every day.
So lets see what’s going to happen.
Maybe this Christmas a GOTY edition including one or two major DLCs will go through the roof…
We’ll just have to wait. And obviously WH would have to get this crappy piece of software to work properly in the first place…

#148

Personally I think all of us who bought the game at full price are entitled to some childish whining about the product we receieved. People who buy the game for $10 in the bargain bin in a years time are going to have a much better experience than those of us who supported the product from the very start and got shafted for doing so.

Paying AAA prices for an early access game is never cool, no matter how small the devs are.

2 Likes
#149

Yes it’s most unfortunate we ARE their free QA dept and beta testers. One speculation is they may have been facing increasing PR pressure & scrutiny with those KCD playthroughs on Youtube with vloggers like ESO. Which could explain the rationale for rushing to release it so early — without the benefit of an exclusive press release. And especially since the devs knew the game was being released unfinished. Pulling this sort of No Man’s Sky tactic predictably brought out the worst in the game press in post game reviews. Particularly where those anti #gamergate game reviewers were concerned. One way to maintain complete PR control over a game release is doing a press release. That gives the dev better coverage and allows them to run better interference. Use this time to take feedback & improve the day 1 patch update. Reduce potentially negative PR feedback before official release etc.

Another explanation is they were pushed into early release because they were running out of budget to finalize game production. So this would’ve been the way to get immediate cash flow. Marketing the game at a AAA price point with the intent to fix the bugs on the fly later. If this was the strategy, then they exceeded beyond their wildest expectations. At least for the first two weeks of release anyways. But successfully addressing the bugs appears to be an increasing challenge for the dev team to date. Especially given the fact they’re a small studio and so have limited resources in manpower and/or budget.

1 Like
#150

This ‘small studio’ excuse has to stop. If you are an indie developer then you can get away with releasing small unfinished and buggy games, but when you take on such an ambitious project for such a large game and you charge AAA prices for it, you have to take the criticism that any other AAA developer would take for a game released in this state. It’s not acceptable, and personally I predict that WH will never actually finish Kingdom Come to an acceptable standard. I just hope we all remember this when they try to release their next game that they made with all the profits from KCD.

1 Like
#151

Yes I’m afraid what you’ve said is completely true. The latest update/hotfix completely broke the ability for a good number of players to finish the game. This isn’t just the MQ progression, but several side quests as well. Even if they satisfactorily addressed the game breaking bugs affecting MQ progression (say by Dec of this year) they’ll be behind the power curve in finalizing/polishing the 3rd Act? for the game (given KCD’s abrupt & inconclusive ending).

Which in turn, would put off any development for additional content for the game in the future. Like the (rumored?) unconventional DLC release of the game from a female protagonist perspective. Not trying to start an argument here, but it sounds as though this concept is something the dev team is seriously considering (from this forum & others on web).

So any planned work on releasing an official mod tool is going to be pushed even further back. The release of a mod kit is paramount to retaining player interest in the game. IMO the latest patch update (and resulting hotfix) has undermined player confidence in the dev’s ability to resolve the broken game play. And if Steam and other similar site trends are to be believed, then a LOT of PC gamers are fast losing interest in playing this game. If that’s the case and

1.the game continues being the broken mess it is 6-8 months from now and/or
2.no mod kit tools have been released by that time then
3.you can kiss any possible interest in modding this game goodbye. Because the PC gamers will have long since left the building.

And also because this is how long it took Bethesda (YES. I’ve got to invoke their name yet AGAIN) to release Creation Kit mod tool. Approximately 1 year after Skyrim’s 2011 release. And trust me when I say the vanilla game was ridiculously riddled with bugs at the time of CK’s release. So the “Bethesda being the bigger dev” argument holds zero weight here. Todd Howard had always planned on releasing a mod kit (because he knew TES gamers would use it to help him fix the f@cking bugs in the game). And it turns out this gambit paid off. Far more than his wildest expectations IMO. But the point is the Skyrim mod kit WAS PLANNED FOR during Skyrim’s development. Which put it right on schedule for release a year later. Based on WH Studio on tw@tter & game reviewer feedback to date, it doesn’t appear WH had this oversight while developing KCD. Seemed a lot more like an afterthought…

IMO the way they marketed the game at release (especially given their small studio size and limited manpower/budget resources) is a lose-lose situation. Assuming the “big backer” from the Kickstarter days doesn’t step in to provide additional financial support that is.

#152

None of these statements are completely true.
Subjective truth at best…

Warhorse are not an indie.
Their quality is inline with all other projects if wqual scope to date.
It has all the hallmarks of a new release open world role playing game (typically a game style rarely done and with gameplay spanning more than twenty hours. (50 hours being above average, and 70+ hours rarer still)
It has;
a few gameplay bugs
a few balance bugs
a few engine difficulties
some small amount of rooms and ‘spots’ that need review (having overdraw issues bombing performance from every video card)
a few menu options missing
And, unusually, stuck with a large range of platforms to have to tweak madly for (xbox one, xbox one s, xbox one x, ps4) and pass on optimisations too.

Not being an ‘indie’…
They have teams working on all different aspects of the game…
(Probably presently not working on multiplayer/alt player characters/expansions/later act(s))
Presently providing patches and ‘porting’ improvements. (They are culling aspects of Ultra to sweeten consoles, eager to improve the experience for ALL)

Yes- I have read and understand that many players (Not ‘Most’ players) are having many issues with quest completions and gameplay halting errors. (Camera shake till wanting to vomit, uncompletable quests, etc)

I can see in less than two months the studio has assembled so many fixes in rapid development and deployment. Hotfixes even (the only issue I personally have had was a missing cutscene… and 500mb and less than three days, I think it was, I had the cutscene restored…)

They have mentioned in press (not verbatim:) -that they have seperate branches working on different aspects of the project at this time.
To me, this single fact is phenominal!

The team are not finished. They have no interest in abandoning this product- they have a vision and they ARE clearly working on the products future.

They know the product has no future if not restored to being a polished gem.
Four to six months would be the norm to expect for that of any project of this scope (yes, almost irrespective of studio size)
Game balancing alone is something only market playtesting allows to eventually get perfect.
How many cool game cheats have we, the community, nailed already?(in my house alone we all share our secrets and its often a toss up between ‘starting a new playline’ or ‘playing on’ with an existing character)

This game has more than twenty hours of main story arc. Every person I know who plays ot first talk about when the ‘Opening credits role’- its that kind of experience…

The main reason most people feel upset with this game is to do with not being able to play it.
Thats actually a pretty impressive feat if we think about it.
For many people this game is so addictive that ‘not getting it’ IS a sad thing.
I know with any other consumer product, certainly ones to do with hobbies or entertainment, I’d not care to hang on its forums or ‘give a shit’.
Henrys world is what is amazing.
Ive not seen freely a medieval world done so ‘large scale /accurately’.

Whilst realistic graphics is the hardest genre to pull off (studies show the slightest jarring detail can break immersion vs any cartoony or ‘less real’ game where our mind is essentually taking over and imagining the game world) Kingdon Come has done it. Should I say - Warhorse has done it?!

This game will be alright. Its long term audience guarantees that.
WH want to be proud of their work/or at least be seen as reputable in a positive way. They are going to continue to deliver much content. In time it will all work too. Mods alone ensure that (this game already has a huge audience given its typical niche).

I dont need to be quoted steam stats. Ive lived gaming since the seventies. I know this through and through.
Id even bet that WH will give us early adopters ‘way more value for money’ with free upgrades than they should need too.

I know this post doesnt belong in this thread ’ so much’ given the original topic posts. (I havent read it all either)…
I did read two comments that needed responding to before they lead people toward incorrect truth with regard to WH.
I honestly cannot think of very many companies striving so constantly and passionately to deliver and improve a product. In software even less so. In RPGs - Id count a handful.

he gamet not p

4 Likes
#153

seems like a dissection of Far Cry would be more useful and instructive than Skyrim/FO. FC5 (and some of its predecessors) had map editors. it’s not the end all but it’s something.

based on Tobi and others trolling thru WH office space (and showing what’s on their screens), find it implausible that WH didn’t create a graphic user interface (roughly equivalent to CK) for its own devs.

agree it would be appreciated if WH shared a status update here. why not pressure on this specific item as your feedback on the most annoying forum?

1 Like
#154

+1 jus’ for mentioning ‘map editor’

Woo hoo!
(On the basis that ’ all tools are good tools’ )

#155

It seams that the people with pc’s are haveing the worst expeareance with KCD. Its a shame. Paying top dollar for a platform should give you the expectation of getting the beast performance. While some of the difficulty might lie in an individual trying to push his hardware to far, I suspect it has more to do with the difficulty in making a game that complies with so many different configurations and possessors available to day. It may be time to standardize a gaming PC. Or just switch to consoles.

#156

Software architecture is mostly Intel with some AMD the basic architecture is the same even between those. PlayStations ans Xbox’s both use AMD processors and have relatively similar hardware to PC’s. The problem was in the poor design of the game.

#157

I like the design of the game. The huge corporate conglomerates like EA and Bioware hate it because it eats into their profit margarine. I commend Warhorse for what they are trying to achieve hear.

1 Like
#158

I read it from WH graphics dev himself … game is designed for consoles.

It’s a maiden product (homegrown tools developed by peeps inexperience with engine). It was rushed (ie, good amount of bugs and design issues). The studio is small (bottlenecks, triaging, opportunity costs have profound impact).

1 Like
#159

I was talking about the code and bugs, not the design of the game.

#160

See this is the major problem I see everywhere. It’s always excuses, they say “look at Skyrim bugs, look at this look at that” that’s the problem, Skyrim shouldn’t still have the bugs it does, it’s not an excuse, every time people make excuses for actions and try to blame other things it just enables ALL game studios to continue down this path, big and small.

#161

The argument over profit line and customer satisfaction is not an argument that is ever going to end. I think I’m getting more bang for my buck with this game than with any other in my collection at this time, which is why I support them. Every one can chose the amount to which they support a game in this free market system.

#162

comment moved to different forum

1 Like
#163

I briefly saw what you said, that’s why game engines were built to run universally on most platforms. The problem is the processing power and capabilities between them that causes issues. Even if they architecture was different like the 360 and Xbox one you can still play 360 games because Microsoft made a VM (virtual machine) of the 360 you can play on the one.

#164

i’m not viewing it as an excuse for the vendor. i’m viewing it as a cynical as heck consumer. there’s just no rational basis to think WH should’ve rolled out something different than what they did (i don’t care how convincing the visual seduction was during beta).

if we want this product to be better, we have to be persistent, vocal, concise, candid, (respectful) and actionable in our feedback

the mod situation needs an update.

1 Like
© 2015 Warhorse Studios www.warhorsestudios.cz