It's taken around 3 months to get 1.1 and 1.2 out. At the rate of change for these patches I would estimate we need another 4 to 5 patches which means around another 6-9 months before the game is stable. I think that would be fair from CDPR to do before even giving us DLC as I would rather have complete and functional systems in the current game than get DLC of hair-do's or more penis sizes. Also the way they tried to present the 1.2 changes was cute but it was lipstick on a pig, we don't want cute anymore we just want results.
Given their reputation I would hope that it's a many as it takes! As a console player I found CDPR late on a friend's recommendation of TW3 when I was looking for something to play after Skyrim. I was super stoked to discover their next project was one of my favourite rpg. Weird bendy storm trees aside Witcher 3 was already fixed when I played it and given how much of a departure CP 2077 is from their comfort zone it isn't surprising that they've had some hiccups. I'm enjoying the game and I'm happy to wait for more.
However many it is my ps4 won't ever look as good as my son's PC but that's also fine.... I personally think the older console versions would look better without some of the lighting effects, but without understanding the red engine I don't know if that's possible.
Many under the radar hotfixes with a chance to tweak rather than few big patches with much fanfare sounds better to me. Most launchers patch automatically anyway.
However many it is my ps4 won't ever look as good as my son's PC but that's also fine.... I personally think the older console versions would look better without some of the lighting effects, but without understanding the red engine I don't know if that's possible.
Many under the radar hotfixes with a chance to tweak rather than few big patches with much fanfare sounds better to me. Most launchers patch automatically anyway.
I don't really think it's such a bad time line for the patches and hotfixes, so far - for me it seems longer and slower because I'm waiting for each one hoping for certain fixes. (I've personally never followed a game's patches so closely before. Yeah I've wanted fixes and moaned about bugs before, but cyberpunk just feels a bit more urgent to me. Like I'm invested in its progress more.)
I do feel bad for the folks who genuinely can't play it. I don't mean those who noticed they got 3 frames less a second than they wanted and declared it unplayable. I mean those with constant crashes or blocked progress in quests. Maybe that's why some people are losing patience. (I'm lucky enough to have gotten to the end and still playing).
It does seem like cdpr really wants to fix it though. I think they will put the effort in.
I hope that happens anyway.
I do feel bad for the folks who genuinely can't play it. I don't mean those who noticed they got 3 frames less a second than they wanted and declared it unplayable. I mean those with constant crashes or blocked progress in quests. Maybe that's why some people are losing patience. (I'm lucky enough to have gotten to the end and still playing).
It does seem like cdpr really wants to fix it though. I think they will put the effort in.
I hope that happens anyway.
Unpredictable.
What i can see for now - is this: the problem which resulted in the tons of bugs at the release - largely remains in place. This problem - is lack of top-notch coders and/or testers in CDPR; or perhaps, they have some, but they are overloaded or somehow else unable to do well.
I remember when for example Starcraft (I and later II) were released, no bugs of the kind were present. Those titles ran stable and all the core mechanics and balance were polished and working at all times. Sure, Blizzard still issued tons of small fixes after the release, improving on all kinds of aspects of the game, but the product was "world class game" right at the release. Same was with Mass Effect. Same thing with Civilization (at least up to fifth game - i played them all a lot, but not 6th). Etc. So we know it's doable. Lots of examples.
Reasons aside, CDPR did not achieve this with CP2077. And truth be told, they also did not achieve this - at the release - with Witcher 3 (details - here: https://www.thegamer.com/cyberpunk-2077-bugs-issues-witcher-3/ ). And now, everyone's hope is that CDPR will "fix" this game much like they managed to fix Witcher 3.
But who guarantees CDPR _can_ do it?
If, for whatever reasons, their coders and testers won't massively improve their results - i have reasonable doubts this game will ever make it to world class title, quality-wise. I mean, we even have inventories which work slower and slower the more items are in them. This is 2021, but we have a game which starts to lag during working player's inventories with merely several dozens items in player appartment stash? An RPG supposedly all built all around hundreds various items to loot? Gimme a brake...
And it is more than just all kinds of broken things and bugs. It's also extremely stupid in-game mechanics - great many of them. My recent topic about 9.2M headshot, for example (mind you, this is legit - no bugs, glitches, mods used)? Good example. In a game where even thoughest enemies have some 100...200k health, one can clearly see how unbalanced the game is, in this sense. It ain't just "couple times higher damage" from what would be balanced skill / perk system. It's _dozens_ times higher damage possible to do. At which point, frankly, there is no sense to sacrificing defenses and other perks / features for "top notch damage". Indeed, what difference it makes if it's 9M or just 400k, if both drop anything instantly?
And the same problem goes on and on. "Economics" is seemingly present, but in fact eddies are laughably easy to earn in excessful amounts after certain grinds are done (to max level, etc). Which grinds themselves - are often boring, and often too lengthy (it ain't 1980s, CDPR!
). Core "armor" mechanic is created by somebody who clearly had no clue whatsoever about what anyhow interesting defensive gameplay mechanic can be. I bet even simplest phrase on this subject, like "multiplicative DR% with reasonable hard cap instead of plain DR with no cap" would puzzle 'em, eh. Great many dozens of food and drink items which perform no practically significant gameplay function. Heck, the game probably has more perks and items for "better killing robots" than how many robots we actually end up meeting in the game. Who made all this? Game designer? Or was it migraine designer? =)So yeah. It's not a given even 5-6 patches will fix the game to something good-in-all-regards. May well never happen. And man will i be sad if this will be this game's end! It clearly has lots of great effort put into it by model artists, voice artists, motion capture artists, writers and scripters. Vast majority of that effort producing excellent results.
I wish we could do something significant to assist CDPR in getting better at it. But i don't think we can. We can only hope. Let's hope...
For me the AI work and the world physics are essential before i can say it's playable. I try to get in the game but the lack of depth in those fields always make my experience uncomfortable and can't play more than half and hour because of the poor immersion. I really hope those things are reworked completely, but i doubt they will spend that much time and effort or if it's even profitable for them. Sadly, if that doesn't get addressed i will not be able to finish the game.
You forgot your /s, it seems? =)
By the way, if memory serves, in ancient greek the word "idiot" meant "honest person". I say, you go proud, friend. I would.
I suppose 500 bug fixes, QoL improvements and a lot of general game polishing in several different areas, game stability improvements and whatnot are still not results, just because they didn't fix something you wanted fixed precisely the way you want it fixed?
Also it took them this long, because if you haven't noticed the world is still amidst pandemic and trust me it's a lot more difficult for AAA developers working from home and trying to coordinate everything that goes in that process compared to when they do it in the studio then a lot of people seem to realise. Let's not forget they were hit by a cyber attack, which by some devs admition left them unable to work at all for weeks and last, but not least there were hollidays and devs are people and want to spend them with their families like everyone else.
As for your question - as many, as they deem needed I imagine. Witcher 3 also had a lot of patches released for couple of years along with all the DLC and it's expansions and I assume it will take, as long, as they need to take with them. Credit should be given where credit is due and with 1.2 patch they clearly showed they are hard at work on the game and haven't simply cut their losses with it, but will continue to patch it and improve it. I would hardly call their work on 1.2 "lipstick on a pig", but you do you.
500 bug fixes is not too much of a result when it's thousands bugs to be fixed. It's partial result. Is it good? Yes. Is it sufficiently good? No.
Further, there are dozens new bugs introduced, up to and including game unable to start due to 1.2 installed. Corresponding reports are too numerous and uniquely worded / styled to leave any doubt about it.
QoL improvements are not always functioning - for example, they have one about Meredith's shard saying it's "now" possible to get 10k eddies from it in corresponding branch of the quest, but some report it is not working. Further, the patch also brings hidden QoL worsements, so to say - undocumented in patch notes changes which "nerf" quite a number of things many players grew to enjoy or even love. Some other nerfs of the sort also come documented, too - perhaps most significant of which is disabling of "kerenzikov speed dash" or somesuch, which i read many players loved to do. We can understand it was "unintended" - but we can also understand the fury of some folks who lost their "neat small unintended features" in the game. Perhaps it'd be wise for CDPR to postpone this sort of fixes to a bit later date, when more of things which should actually work properly would be fixed, 1st?
About pandemic: i don't buy it, friend. Gamedev is one of least affected crafts, and you seem to "conviniently forget" that it ain't all bad effects. What about all the time saved by all the employees by not having to travel to and from the office? What about all the time saved to stroll 'em corridors? What about all the time saved to dress up into fancy working attair, shave daily, fuel / repair 'em damn cars, etc etc? You think all that freed time is less what extra time they require to spend for setting up some conference calls for remote working environment? I sincerely doubt that!
Cyber attack: how's that customer problem, even if it really happened? If it did happen - then it's CDPR's system administrators' fault for being unable to maintain redundant, multi-level protection of their inner networks. Back in the day, Blizzard's closed battle.net servers and network was under attacks great many times, but nobody managed to do any lasting damage as far as i know, for example. If CDPR's unable to do comparable level of self-defense, then it's just one of specific ways of "how" they generally fail to deliver as much as expected of them - yet it's still a failure, not any kind of excuse.
Holidays: this one, i fully agree with. There is time to work and time to recover and rejuvenate. Though i doubt CDPR employees had much of holidays this time around - except from select few "higher ups", perhaps. They have a disaster on their hands - how many games you know were removed for months from PS store right after release? This is big, man. I don't think any many folks in CDPR had any much opportunity to do holidays at all.
"Lipstick on a pig": this is a bit exagerrated, and certainly rude, way to describe patch 1.2. Me, i'd say 1.2 is "hundreds of fig leaves, most small, few big, and quite a few messed up themselves". Or "hasty bunch of most easy fixes possible, most but not all working as intended". Or perhaps "lots of quick bandages applied to the game which bleeds through thousands cuts". Is it good? Generally yes. Is it sufficient to keep the patient alive? For some whie, it is. But it ain't any long while.
So you see, let's not go the extremes, sir. Neither hopium nor doom and gloom is good. The truth is between. So far, at least.
I don't think I am going into any extremes here. What I am doing is pointing out that work is slower than what many would like, because there is/was several good reasons for it and being constantly impatient across several topics and throwing rude remarks will do absolutely nobody any good. Nor us - the gamers, nor the developers... nobody.
Also If you think game development, especially AAA game development is one of the least affected areas by the pandemic, then with all due respect, friend - you know very little or nothing, about game development. As a former concept artist I have worked on several projects and I can assure you it's a lot more difficult and time consuming in getting things done by working from home and they weren't even on such a big scale as CP.
For the Cyber attack you seem to have missed my point completely. Nowhere did i say it was a customer problem, but things like this are bound to slow their work regardless of who's fault was it. Neither was it meant, as any form of "excuse".
And that's, as far as I am going to go with that discussion. The moment the word excuses start to be thrown around is the time I take my que to delta out. I am not here to excuse anyone - I am simply watching things from a more objective point of view.
In the end of the day - it's a damn video game. Nobody's life depends on getting the patches one month earlier or later. People can do with learning some patience. I understand that many people who can't normally play the game are angry and I don't blame them, since they paid for a product, but that's things that happen in this industry all the time - sometimes competely out of everyone's control and topic after topic about this is getting IMO quite tiresome.
People can just take a break for several months - there is a lot of entertainment in the form of movies, games and whatnot to keep one occupied and then they can jump back in and see how things are going along. In the end just cut your loses and move on if you don't like how things are going. Getting constantly angry and impatient, because things don't improve at lighing speed is IMO quite immature and feel free to disagree with me on that all you like.
Objectivity is exceptionally valuable, yes. If you are truly after it, then i hope the following remark will help us to obtain agreement in this here talk (which seeing your last post, i start to massively enjoy - you sound indeed mature and experienced, plus well-tempered, too):
my previous post here was made through the lense of understanding how "average Joe" sees the patch. In my opinion, we should indeed estimate how the _public_ would view the patch, - not our personal estimate of it, however well-qualified and educated it may be. Because it's ultimately the public who much defines the future of a game - however "unprofessional", "mistaken" and at times even "childish" the public can be. The fate of the product is much dependant on public's perception of presented developments. I'd argue - much more on public's perception than on professionals' opinion about it.
And that's why it is through this lense public discussions on the subject better be done in public forums.
But perhaps, i'm wrong here? If you think i am, then please tell me you do (preferably with a line or few about why). Thanks! o7
I would personally love to see a realistic lighting and color palette mod to remove the neon from the city. The neon and heavy bloom is distracting. Maybe I just have overly-sensitive eyes.
It's the weird sandpaper scatter effect that's bugging me, seems worse on wet pavement and shiny marble. I find it very distracting when driving and running. When you look at the textures up close they're beautiful.
Most of the perks are working now and a tonne of them got fixed in 1.2. For some reason CDPR just never documented them.
I love the game and I'm active in the modding community where I get to learn new skills, solve problems and share the cool stuff I made. When I run into bugs or quirky mechanics, I write them down because I find it interesting and it helps to understand how things work when poking around the game files anyway.
Occasionally I understand a problem well enough to submit a bug report and every bug I've reported so far has gotten fixed in the following patch.
Play the game or don't. Help fix the bugs or don't. But this whole thing where you put all your hopes and dreams into a promise to fix everything in the game by a set date is a fantasy. How long will it take to fix all the bugs? How long is a piece of string?
So my recommendation is to go and do something you enjoy and come back to CP2077 later. If its a whole new game then great! If not, then just play something else for a while. I do this all the time in Warframe. I leave it when I get bored. I come back to a slew of new content and fixes every 6 months to a year. Its just magically there because I never had to wait for it. I enjoy all of my time in Warframe because the minute I don't, I'm outta there. See ya in 6 months.