Poor reviews for console version of Cyberpunk 2077

wizardofid

wizardofid

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Mystic Twilight said:
Game development time seems to be unfortunately too long these days, the studio has to either release an incomplete/bug prone product to get cash or become bankrupt before the game is ready for launch. Microtransactions and dlc for existing games will probably help with the studio keep going regarding cash flow to keep expenses manageable, but we know how notorious those types of add-ons can become.
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Actually development time has sped up.You would see a game only every 4 years, which is down to every 2 years now.There are exceptions of course, delaying games due to unforeseen circumstances, issues with the game engine, content problems poor in house reviews ect.

There has between several improvements made on the game making tools, things like speed tree, rock, terrain and foliage generators, even character development which was always the bane of any game is easier.

There are exceptions however, like developing your own in house engine, there isn't a lot of studios that use their own in house engines these days, most have shifted over to unity and unreal. In case of cyberpunk they decided to upgrade REDengine 3 used in the witcher, much like creation engine used with the elder scrolls series.

The problem is unreal and unity isn't suited to scope and game mechanics of open world games like cyberpunk and elder scrolls, while it could handle a game like that, game inventory, asset handling, AI handling and processing is a lot less complex in these engines and doesn't deal well with randomness generation.

Developing and using an in house engines also means cutting off access to certain tools that would generally have sped up development, and while in some cases you can integrate solutions it takes time and both and won't always offer the best results.

But generally development time has improved a lot, but there is still exceptions.
 
V

Vuilhaas

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Jun 5, 2017
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Bryn said:
It's still a console though, as is the PS5.

An RTX 3080 for $699 cannot crack every game at 4K 60fps, so even the new consoles have to be optimised heavily for native 4K resolution. I really wish the console industry hadn't gone crazy for 4K. You wouldn't have to choose between quality and performance modes if they just focused on 1080p or 1440p native resolution. Ray-traced Miles Morales at 60 fps would have been quite something...
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https://www.ign.com/articles/spider-man-miles-morales-updated-with-60fps-ray-tracing-mode

Insomniac delivers once again!
 
G

Goosfrabba

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No Man's Sky all over again.

Give it 6 months and I reckon the game will be mostly sorted. But will anyone care then?
 
Mystic Twilight

Mystic Twilight

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Lukitz said:
CDPR has already recouped their development and marketing costs in the first day... Don't believe that microtransactions and Dlc are required, it's just a scummy way for them to get people to pay more ontop of the ridiculous amounts of money they make.
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That's not the issue, and that recoupment only happened this week, last year this time the project itself (not the studio) was in the red financially because it wasn't available for sale yet. My point was financially a studio can't have long development times because they eventually become bankrupt from a lack of direct income from game sales, which is why I mentioned microtransactions/dlc as an alternative income source if they are not releasing a product on short development cycles. But according to wizardofid game development cycles have decreased so unless a studio is rapidly burning cash for some reason, rushing to release a game (in general by any studio) whether it is complete or error prone should not be because of financial problems, but if it is because of financial problems then that partially explains why for example cp2077 can't delay anymore amongst other reasons.
 
wizardofid

wizardofid

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Mystic Twilight said:
That's not the issue, and that recoupment only happened this week, last year this time the project itself (not the studio) was in the red financially because it wasn't available for sale yet. My point was financially a studio can't have long development times because they eventually become bankrupt from a lack of direct income from game sales, which is why I mentioned microtransactions/dlc as an alternative income source if they are not releasing a product on short development cycles. But according to wizardofid game development cycles have decreased so unless a studio is rapidly burning cash for some reason, rushing to release a game (in general by any studio) whether it is complete or error prone should not be because of financial problems, but if it is because of financial problems then that partially explains why for example cp2077 can't delay anymore amongst other reasons.
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Well they were still making money from other projects, like the witcher 3. They spend 80 million making the witcher 3 and about 121 million making cyberpunk, which is actually pretty cheap for a game.121million doesn't account for advertising budget. Call of duty modern warfare actual development costs were about 50-80 million. Their advertising costs were 200+ million.

A linear game being developed is pretty straight forward compared to an open world. You have an enclosed area with a predetermined path and you can predict player movement and action, and you can readily test bugs and fix bugs.

Within a open world game that linearity falls away and there is no possible way to accurately predict player action and movement. You could for example accidentally shoot an NPC dead early on in the game, a NPC that would for example give you a mission later in the game, the game needs to keep track of what you have done in the environment the missions you have done, inventory, NPC locations, weapons, vehicles, and other interactive objects that spawned.

The overall game logic gets quite complicated once you attempt to create a more realistic world like cyberpunk or elder scrolls as an example.It isn't easy trying to randomize and micro manage a small world like this and you are bound to end up with bugs even with best efforts you are still going to end up with issues that weren't tested or expected it is just the nature of these games.

These mirco managed, interactive game world is a rather new development and will take some time to iron out lots of things.

But most people are going to mention look grand theft auto got it right, why can't the rest do the same, grand theft auto has there own fair share of bugs, they aren't immune.Grand theft auto is actually a far less micro managed world, it game logic pretty simple, you could kill a NPC needed for later in the game for a mission and the game will just spawn that NPC again.

Tracking and remembering game actions is rudimentary, if you don't need it gets deleted, if you park a car outside an area which wouldn't save the location of the vehicle it gets deleted after a while. Games that follow the simple game logic are still prone to bugs, but they are definitely less immersive.

Unlike elder scrolls for example, if you cause kak at one or other faction, guild or whatever the game remembers it, will continue to remember that you made kak and take action if you come into contact with it.It also had harsh conditions which had to be turned down. NPC's would also get hungry or thirsty and would go and look for food, however the game logic concerning wild animals were pretty harsh that it would wipe out an entire village, meaning some NPC's had to go look for food in other towns and in case of soldiers they would abandon their posts, because of issues finding food and ended up getting punished for it.

These games have definitely evolved far beyond the if, where, when, while game logic conditions. Additionally game mechanics and physics/ collision detection even in linear games take tremendous amount of resources and still fails miserably in certain instances even in games like counter strike global offensive.

So a body sticking in the ground or missing arm in a wall ect, is a physics bug not a game bug and there is only so much you can do about it, these are acceptable bugs, as you will never get them 100% accurate every time, it is physically impossible.

Gamers just see bugs like these and think what have they been doing the last few years making this game, open world games are a nightmare to mirco manage, you could spend 10 years on this game and still run into issues.
As for performance issues, don't know how they managed to screw the pooch on that one.Might be entirely possible that for a change it was a PC developed game with a port to console and not the usual other way around, thing which would account for the poor console performance.

It isn't that simple and straight forward gamers tend to make it sound. There is a lot more to it then simply plopping down a assets and be done with it.
 
Bryn

Bryn

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16,894
Splinter said:
I felt like it at the time. But I'm getting a bit tired of the inevitable denial, so have decided not to bother at the moment :)
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If you don't elaborate on your accusations, don't make them in the first place. Obviously people will deny baseless claims.
 
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