My honest opinion on "From the Ashes" DLC

I admit that i raged in the beginning because i just finished the DLC and i was frustrated as hell. I said some bad things because i was pissed. But that rage was driven by the love i have for this project and this game. But now with a cold head i understand things in a better way.

Warhorse Studios is a very tiny developer. They bring to us a game with much innovation and new perspectives. They has so less money compared to the big developers and suffers from great limitations and problems, and are still suffering now. For them to make such a great game like KC:D is a major victory in my view.

Now i think that we do not have the right to put our hands in his throats and demand things. Of course the DLC was a waste, and been charged for it is kind of a “dick move”, but i feel they deserve some time to breathe, listen to their fans like me and many people and made the right decisions.

:+1::man_facepalming:

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I won’t consider it squandered unless WH doesn’t do any more than add a grindstone. If little is done to ashes, WH will have fundamentally failed to deliver customer requested DLC that aligns with some basic customer desires. Not a good precedent to set

To me, ashes is nice but falls short in some basic ways. Basic ways that WH should have understood and/or anticipated had they well listened to the customer requests.

If WH addresses things mentioned to and acknowledged by Christian, ashes will become a very good to sublime DLC.

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I love KC:D but as more as i think on this DLC, the crap that it is, the opportunities missed and the potential wasted, more i realize that WH will do nothing about that. I think they will not listen to thousands of people who love the game but are frustrated with this DLC as i.

This is quite a shame…

The only option is the far and uncertain future that this game will support mods and a tool for mods to be made by us, the dissatisfied…

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You might be right but hope you’re not for 2 reasons. One is selfish. I play on console. Two is I want WH to own some more basic game frameworks/mechanics. If a modder creates a framework/mechanic, it can only be fixed by the modder and only to the extent it doesn’t bollocks the game itself. Having WH create the framework/mechanic means that they own it and are under some good faith obligation to make it play nice with everything else in KCD

Framework/mechanics of ‘home’ i see as missing are:
—Ability to assign object to location (eg shield to hangar, cuirass to rack/mannequin, goblet to table, book to bookcase)
—Ability to participate in multiperson mini-game (eg drinking)
—Ability to assign different functional tasks [bathe, launder (bathhouse), fix clothing (tailor), fix shoes (cobbler)] to designated NPC (eg servant to perform tasks since structures not created)
—Ability to use chest as inventory for alchemy lab (eg in Pribyslavitz, dump all herbs, flowers from herb garden and elsewhere into chest in next room and have accessible during ‘cooking’)
—Ability to use Rathaus chest to supply hamlet needs beyond groschen (eg potions for people, weapons for guards, additional meat for tavern)

Stretch mechanics/frameworks:
—Ability to assign gear to guards
—Ability to assign above guards to squad
—Ability to use above squad to attack/defend against enemy squad

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Of course WH has his responsabilities, like make the game playable in every plataform. In reality, you people who play in consoles have this problem, the need from fixes by the developer only. You don’t have the same freedom as me who plays on PC and can mode the game and fix things by myself.

The fight is been fought by us, the players and fans of KC:D. Whether on PC or console, we want to see the game fixed and improved. And WH has that responsability.

What i’m saying in my previous post was about the improvements on the DLC, not the fixes and improvements in the base game itself. That must be solved by any means by WH.

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The day WH takes the bull by the horns and makes ashes and KCD right is the day I’ll be like this kid in the gif…

at least in my inside voice :slightly_smiling_face:

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I will actually be happy enough if WH just fixes the core game to pre 1.6 performance. I loved the game during 1.5

But yes, making FtA better would definitely not hurt the game either.

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We heard tradeoff and know the popins to be the cost, but what exactly was the benefit…? Framework to permit hardcore and/or ashes? To reduce but not eliminate MissileCommand/Minecraft rain?

Wish @WH_janrucker , @DrFusselpulli or somebody else could enlighten us

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No idea, but as is I would to trade back as I prefer more frequent missile commans rain to no dirt and blood visuals and way worse pop ins.

I also wish WH could enlighten us but it seems they are running with the silent strategy. If they pretend that there are no problem they may hope it will go away. I can personally say that if this is not taken care of until I come home from Japan, I am done investing more money in anything from WH.

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The lack of transparency is usually associated to when you have something to hide, or you’re not comfortable with something… Anyway, it seems clear that it’s a shoot in the foot, which they may regret in the future.

Warhorse members are probably more comfortable making Twitter marketing posts and getting a high chance of fanboyism, probably losing the feet on the ground. I hope we’re mistaken and they remediate the situation adding real depth to FTAs DLC (and future ones) and making a high quality patch that recover the lost confidence (e.g. definite bug fixing, fixing broken mechanics, adding that missing content that Vavra said they’ll do their best to reinstate, but still haven’t seen much).

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I fell the same, and for me smells like incompetence.

Our imagination and ideas can make us go far away in the “dream land”, and i think that is the case with WH. They dreamed too high, with many things to do a revolutionary game above all the others, but when the time comes to put all of that “dream” in reality, sadly the real world do not work like the “dreamland”. And with that, they are stucked with many difficulties.

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If you could choose, new DLC or missing content ( mounted units, crossbows, etc)… which would it be?

Mounted units (fix your warhorse, Warhorse!), roaming NPCs, dynamic events (e.g. instead of getting killed eveytime you lose a fight with a bandit/cuman, there’s a % chance that while unconcious, you get robbed some part of your equipment/money and there’s a new radiant quest when you wake up, trying to recover your beloved helmet, cuirass or whatever), world consistency, real randomness (e.g. you could get robbed/attacked if camping in the woods, or while sleeping in your DLC “house” if you have enemies…).

I think/hope that Band of Bastards DLC might add some of this content, but why do we have to pay if it should have been part of the game (I’ve seen all their videos during development, I may be wrong, but I got that impression)? The game feels incomplete, it has so so much potential…

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Do you people think that WH will see all the things we are writing here? I ask this only to know how do you people think about all of this crap happening with the DLC, patch 1.6 and how WH will react, it they react in any way.

I think they will never see what we are talking about and continue to be silent.

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It appears an active element in the studio is here (forums) to put out small fires.

Of course we like to believe that studio members READ their own product forums…

Can anyone here putting in a fourty to sixty hour working week state that they use their free time to read up more about their company?
Now increase the working hours to eighty and make the reading material caustic…

I understand why tweets became ‘a thing’.

Yes some forum posts should be acknowledged by specific team members: in the real world bronging them into a long posted forum discussion isnt the best for them or us…
Nor is having them read the length and breadth of these pages.

As a community we didnt keep the forums tight and accesible.
700 threads entitled game sucks probably doesnt warrant wider reading by anyone

At least we have a place to rant and rave…
Microsoft would have baned 70% of posted accounts if shitspeaking one of THEIR products or methodogies.

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So… This here is all “shitspeaking”…

Good to know.

Yes you delicate wallflower.
Everyword on the internet is A) about you
and B) derogatory

Of course you need to champion argument about me speaking negatively. Those words are time well spent.
Oh how I have learnt.
(Do not speak any words and check in with precious types who think the world gravitates around them.)

I hope I can follow our unspoken agreement and dont deviate from its terms and conditions too much.

Anything you need me to specifically put on the ‘delicates’ shelf?

Can I talk about the platform you game on?
Can I speak about the companies you buy into?
I suppose ONE of us best consider ‘moving along’ or else we might lock horns…
Ir I can ignore the individuals who puy themselves above the majority… hang on-I do that already-

Please further the discussion or give somethi g light hearted and fun.

There is enough pointless bickering in the world for either of us to continue it, and if we really do need to argue - how about something more important like conservation/religion/politics/conspiracy war plots etc…

No? Arguing about arguing updates and DLCs for an entertainment title should be personal and for ego grandisations specifically.

Good boy! (Dog biscuit given)
(If I plus 1’d you, you might have taken it to heart?!)

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I don’t know what I think, but I know what I feel.

I have been talking about a functional popin test for a while. I’ve written about it in these forums. Suggested it as a qualification test for patches. The design intent of this test: WH shares the popin tolerance level with us, tests toward it, and communicates relative to it so we have a common frame of reference.

In response to yet another PC performance tweet by Daniel, I’ve tweeted about consoles (showing missing bridges) and suggested an objective popin test such as Rattay race. I’m persona non grata with Daniel … so got nothin’ in reply.

In this forum, I’ve been told console hardware is limited and the Rattay race isn’t appropriate. Some users here gave that WH comment likes and in so doing missed the point: the test is to qualify KCD to a transparent, publicly discussed threshold. WH markets on PS4 so that WH sentiment and the users here that voted for it are enablers of consumer disregard and disrespect.

That consumer (console) disregard and disrespect took center stage when @Potestaquisitor posted obvious evidence to Daniel and got a reply. Daniel replied something to the effect ‘sorry, it was a tradeoff to fix complicated unexpected problem.’

A tradeoff that wasn’t disclosed during patch communications and wasn’t acknowledged directly by WH support in response to 1.6 popin tickets. If that level of consumer disregard and disrespect were in evidence in medical device software, patients would be harmed if not killed. Thank goodness KCD just kills time.

I might be one of the more active WH forum users since release. As with (nearly) all users here, i offer feedback for free and hope that it’s of some utility to WH. If is it and if they ignore it, it’ll only be to WH’s own detriment. Whether WH listens instead of just hears is largely up to Daniel and Martin.

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Interesting tidbit. When I was digging around in the datafiles I came across quest dialogue for a quest to steal a beer recipe. Obviously cut content. My lasting impression is that they had much grander designs for this DLC in the beginning.