Maybe it's all Red Engine's fault?

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The trend seems to be that studios that develop and manage their own proprietary engines, when a major version is released the first few games tend to be buggier. I am sure studios are aware of the trends and the risks, and that they they knew there would be some pains and internally the risk was accepted.

But boy do I hope that those that pitched the risks to the senior management did provide an accurate assessment of the identified risks.

The thing you never want to have happen on your project is to get to this kind of juncture and have senior management completely unaware that it could end up as it has -- or becoming aware of the risks after it is too late to do anything about it.
 
“Speaking earlier this week on Wednesday (and transcribed by Seeking Alpha), Kaciński said that Cyberpunk 2077's performance on the base PS4 and Xbox One consoles is "surprisingly good, I would say, for such a huge world."

I read the transcript. The PDF is available here.

I read it as their performance results were based on testing they performed on their internal development hardware, and not on the typical hardware external testers were using at home. I could be wrong, but that's how I read it in his response to the questioner.

Either way, the result is the same. They lost a lot of trust with their platform vendors. And they're going to need to go above and beyond to get it back.
 

FkzAz

Forum regular
I read the transcript. The PDF is available here.

I read it as their performance results were based on testing they performed on their internal development hardware, and not on the typical hardware external testers were using at home. I could be wrong, but that's how I read it in his response to the questioner.

Either way, the result is the same. They lost a lot of trust with their platform vendors. And they're going to need to go above and beyond to get it back.

I also believe this is the reason why he said that.

The problem is that they didn't take for account those using a completely fragmented PS4. Hence why some users are experiencing the game in many diferent ways on PS4.

And that's why the loading times increased on last Gen on new patches (from what I heard), because they are loading more stuff before hand.

Good luck trying to load all those textures and animations scriptw on the go in a fragmented PS4 HDD.

There are several ways to improve performance on a ps4 using their own tools, defragging being one of them. They should have a made a post about this.
 
In the moment we are in the bright time of transition between current/next gen.


Building a PC with the features of a XSX or PS5 would cost € +/- 1500 (Nov. 2020). I think the biggest part of "gamer"-PCs is in this range (or lower). Mine is. Especially if you're not in the group of players where a millisecond is the little difference between blown away by headshot or not.

Don't blame it on the consoles. I wasn't that thrilled with my XSX, either. And hey, the PS5 had "crowds" little as kindergarten-groups?
It isn't always the fault of the (console-)hardware.
Your understanding of the current gen consoles seems flawed, here is some more educational material.
 
I disagree that it's the engines fault, or that the developers (the actual coders) couldn't get it to work. When you play the game you can see that the developers really knew what they were doing, and made some fantastic things in the world with it.

The issue was the engine, it was the directors and the management. They even admit they just wanted to launch the game in their apology to the investors, and didn't really care about the state of the game. Plus the direction was all over the place, so every time a developer was going strong and getting something ready, the directors would come in and either chop it or stop them and move them on to something else.

You can see that in how some cars work really well (well... well-ish) and others work horrible with no consistency or balance. You can see it in some of the locations of the city where it's alive and vibrant and you feel like you're in a real city, then you turn a corner and you get an empty street, or even worse a street for of lifeless computer generated automatons. There are other places as well.

It had nothing to do with the engine, and everything to do with the incompetence, inconsistency and flightiness of management.
 

FkzAz

Forum regular
Your understanding of the current gen consoles seems flawed, here is some more educational material.

This games shown in these videos are poorly optimized for next Gen consoles.

Kinda of like when octacores where released but the software available wold only use 4 cores.

You should sit here by my side and I will show you AC Valhalla on my 55' hdr Sony tv. Or even Miles Morales, you know, the second best looking game of 2020 according to DF.

It's you know, breathtaking.

And even more funny, ubisoft said a few weeks ago that they will release a new patch on next Gen (another one!) that will improve even further the graphics quality.

Games atm are barely scratching the new consoles raw power.

You can have all the power in your HW, but if your coding is bad (engine/compiler) , the result will alleays be bad.
 
Games atm are barely scratching the new consoles raw power.

This is simply not true, since dev's themselves have already stated the PS5 devkit is the best devkit of the last few generations, giving them full access too the PS5's capabilities.

And Uhuh, Digital "2000 dollar PC equivalent" Foundry, are even less credible then CDPR's PR team right now.
 
They could have easily made Night city smaller and more compact to allow certain other things into the game.

When I first saw gameplay off of CP77 I was totally ok for not being able to drive freely in the city.

I'm sure at some point of development they started to direct more towards an "open world" like GTA and it became more of a problem to implement some things they initially wanted.
 

FkzAz

Forum regular
This is simply not true, since dev's themselves have already stated the PS5 devkit is the best devkit of the last few generations, giving them full access too the PS5's capabilities.

And Uhuh, Digital "2000 dollar PC equivalent" Foundry, are even less credible then CDPR's PR team right now.

And yet Mark Ceny (PS CEO), already stated that next Gen games will only be available in 2 to 3 years.

I really don't think you know what your talking about.

This is nothing. And ofc he is right. It doesn't take a genius to figure that out.

Just take as an example Ghost of Tsushima, an PS4 exclusive that is the most beautiful game I have ever seen. (on PS5 backwards compability).

Not a single engine atm in the market is made from scratch to take full advantage of a PS5 or XSX (Ryzen 2 AMD new tech architechture).
 
After Witcher 3 came out CDPR lost a massive chunk of their employees due to crunch and low pay and replaced them with a mostly new team of amateurs.

See this is where criticism turns to hate. You have absolutely no credible source that can actually prove this statement yet you make it.

Laying off people after a massive project is normal in the gaming industry. Saying all the good devs left and now they have a team of amateurs is so disrespectful to the people who had to crunch their souls out to make this game launch worthy.

The game isn't in this state because the devs were amateurs, in fact the tech that runs CP2077 is amazing. The game is like this because it needed at least 1 full year more in development, but it didn't get it.

They will bring all that content back and we need to stop being nasty and disrespectful. Damn.
 
That is called "life". Don't like your job, quit it, change it. Its so pathetic that you guys try to find excuses for people who lied to you.
I didn't try to find an excuse, I pointed out circumstances.

Your understanding of the current gen consoles seems flawed, here is some more educational material.
And you really thought that I would look a 34 min. YT-Video after you throw one sentence in the discussion?



Edit: Did I started a "Console vs PC-Masterrace!!!"-War :) ?
 
I don't know if the flaws we see in the game is due to the Engine limitation.

But, if I have to make a polite guess, I would say that the people responsible for the animations, gameplay design and quest developer are to blame. I'll explain why:


I) Gameplay animators are to blame because the game don't have basic animations, like:

a) Opening/closing the door in some cars (the low resources cars);

b) Using items (drinking/eating);

c) Catch and pet V's own cat in Apartment - which is not possible;

d) Sleeping in V's bed is obviously flawed;

d) There's no much variety of NPCs behavior to what players do;

e) Running animations are very clunky - NPCs change direction like in PES for Nintendo;

f) When V is very close to NPCs, most of them don't react, they don't complain, ask for V to back off, or show any kind of corporal behavior that clearly shows that they are uncomfortable;

g) In the other hand, some members from police and gang members react in a very agressive way, if V is near them;
h) Most vendors doesn't have any animation to show that they are working;

i) Transition between gameplay and scripted animations are very noticeable, it's like they didn't even try to make it more immersive (like in GOW - as an example);

j) Dropping the barrels that have the flame on top of them, while the flames keep floating in the air is another mistake;



II) Gameplay Designers are to blame because the game doesn't seem to care about the player experience:

a) You can go to Dance Clubs and dance, but there's no reason to do that, you don't get famous because of your style, as an example;

b) You can't greet, antagonize and maintain any kind of interaction with most people, the game doesn't even try to be immersive in this area;

c) Talking to the bartender/vendors makes them open the menu, instead of having proper animation and gameplay effect (if you eat something in a restaurant, V could have a bonus effect), and the items they sell are usually very generic and uninteresting;

d) Having multiple brands for drinks/food/alchool without any difference in gameplay effect was clearly a mistake. Putting all those together in the same consumable menu was another mistake - just creates visual polution;

e) Forcing the player to sit to watch TV on his own house, not using drinking and eating animations in restaurants and bars were clearly bad gameplay limitation choices;

f) To let the player sit only in scripted places is another absurd mistake;

g) Crafting waiting bar is trapping the player on the menu, instead of experience the world;

h) If V starts to jump around, run, change weapon or have some crazy behavior, it would be natural for the NPC to react with some "What are you doing?" or "Are you crazy?". But in the game, they do nothing - same goes for nudity (nobody cares);

i) The balance between weapons are very bad. There's no compensation between an Igla and a M2038 tactitian, so the last one is basically useless, even if it is a higher quality tier;

j) How combat work is very strange. You can trample the battlefield with legendary items (sword, pistols and assault rifle), even neglecting the reflexes upgrade. As upgrading the player and having better items overlays each other, doing it breaks the game and makes the player one shot everything (which is a problem in VH difficulty);

k) Gang reaction to V are very mild, compared to what should be: You can kill all Tyger Claws in some area, but this won't change anything when you negotiate with them further in the game, and so on for the other gangs;



III) The quest designers are to blame because despite doing a great job on the main quest:

a) A lot of secondary quests are grindy, and unlinked to world effect. The exceptions are the friends/romance quests and a few secondary that can have some effect;

b) Most choices doesn't have any consequence;

c) Most quests are linked with fixers, so the client has no personal connection with V;

d) NCPD quests are grindy and doesn't change anything;

e) Buying used cars being a series of quests is just a bad joke;

f) TW3 was praised because the secondary missions were very good, and that happened because Geralt always heard the client personal problem, negotiate with them, had to investigate what kind of enemy he would be facing, and the enemies were different from each other - so they had their own strenght and weakesses.

g) That TW3 variety made the missions less grindy, but in CP 2077 they just scrapped that. They killed their greatest gameplay triumph that made the secondary quests actually good and that's why they don't feel unique anymore.

h) In Cyberpunk 2077, the formula is always: i) Fixer calls, tell there is this job, and ask the player to read teh text; ii) The text with photo actually explains what needs to be done, which is always: robbery/assassination/rescuing; iii) V goes to the place, silently or guns blazing - sometimes fixer pays more if the job is done silently; iv) The player faces the same enemies; v) Job is completed and the cycle repeats itself. There are 3 or 4 fixer missions that, when completed, leads to some continuation.

i) Rewards system is, for the most part, frustrating. If you fail some mission, the fixer still hires you for other jobs.

These are the problems that, IMO, hinders the experience, and as I stated in the first line, I don't know if they can be credited to Red Engine 4 limitations.
 
I didn't try to find an excuse, I pointed out circumstances.


And you really thought that I would look a 34 min. YT-Video after you throw one sentence in the discussion?



Edit: Did I started a "Console vs PC-Masterrace!!!"-War :) ?

If you want to stay uneducated about that topic then stay uneducated about it. :shrug:
 

Sken

Forum veteran
The main issue is 'time'.

The game was rushed to market, as a result:
  • Features had to be cut
  • Unfinished quests had to be cut
  • Unfinished systems cut
  • Insufficient testing and polishing time provided
  • And who knows how many other things were cut we are simply not aware of
All these things give the appearance of engine issues, development issues, and so on, but I simply feel they just needed more time to finish, tweak, polish and fix what they had built. This may have delayed the game by over a year, but the game would have been better for it.

I feel that the April 2020 date was unrealistic, and once COVID hit, the teams efficiency working from home would have taken a major hit. Rather than continue aiming for the April 2020 release date with a cut feature set, the company would have been better off announcing that COVID had impacted the development timeline, and the games date should have changed from April 2020, to 2021, 'When Its Ready'.

It would also have helped if they made it clear, major development started in 2016 after Witcher 3 Blood and Wine, and that they did not want to rush the title.

Yes this would have sucked from a PR and investor perspective due to the high anticipation for this game, but it would have been a logical and acceptable reason.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing though, hopefully future patches and some meaty expansions will allow the developers to create something wonderful with this world, and improve some of the deficiences of the base game.
 
See this is where criticism turns to hate. You have absolutely no credible source that can actually prove this statement yet you make it.
CDPR admitted it their self in response to people writing articles about the crunch and low pay complaints coming from their own employees. Do some research.
I'm pretty sure I'm not allowed to link peoples linkedin, so do some googling on your own. Heck they lost their creative director in 2019. People jump ship from CDPR all the time since the Witcher.
 
All I know choomba is Cyberpunk took my world by storm, if I compare it to my last 25years of gaming Cyberpunk takes the lead by a long shot. That's the perspective of a hardcore gamer that didn't have any expectations.

*shrugs*

I can relate to this. I dismissed this as a re-skinned GTA for the longest time. I love the cyberpunk genre, used to play the table top, and love some of the classic films and feel like there is an overwhelming amount of things they got right. And, like all games now, it will be patched and grow with DLC etc. I see this as a chapter, the first floor to a game I hope they keep growing.
 
@Attidd Research what? How do you go from that tweet to "the good devs left and only amateurs are left"? Do you not see the ridiculousness of your statement? You don't even work at CDPR, you have no way of knowing the talent and experience of the dev team.

You're just being disrespectful.
 
pretty sure the issue is just harware limitations
night city is massive and some places have huge crowds

complex npc ai would never work on that scale on console hardware
they had to cut corners where they could

i think redengine is pretty impressive
try spawning that many npcs on bethesta´s creation engine on a moderatly sized map, turn on their ai packages and see what happens.

Yes, I think this comes most likely close to the point. AI needs CPU power. I would not be surprised, when the AI features will come with the multiplayer. Then the AI could be processed by the server.

Regards
 
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