Apparently in response to some comments made yesterday by folks (including myself) on Explorminate's Discord, Erik Rutins dropped in for a bit. Here's what he had to say:
There are some significant gameplay issues we did not spot before release, but gameplay issues are relatively easy to fix. I'm confident we'll be able to resolve those pretty quickly whenever we have time to focus on the gameplay side. I don't see more than 4-6 weeks of gameplay work based on the reports so far, it's just been a lower priority to date because of the critical issues on some systems with crashes and performance. Those are my bigger concerns - the technical issues that are still causing issues on those systems (of course not on any of our systems). We've already tried just about everything short of a major engine upgrade to fix those. Thus, the next step there is a major engine upgrade, probably in about a couple of weeks but it's really quite concerning that these exist at all and that most can't be reproduced on our systems. In any case, I have read the feedback here and I'm sorry many feel let down, but I completely understand. It's disappointing to us as well as we thought we were releasing a generally solid game that would only get better post-release and in fact we delayed release twice internally just to make sure it would be solid. It's clear in hindsight that we had some blind spots and also hadn't appropriately prioritized or fully understood some of the feedback we had received during testing. Along with fixing game issues, we're also trying to address those blind spots for the future. DW2 will get to a much better state, probably within a month or two, but especially for those customers experiencing the critical crash/performance issues, we're very sorry this turned into a source of frustration for them rather than entertainment.
When asked, "Are you pushing to hit zero crash and performance or is there a percentage you're ok living with?"
I don't think it's realistic for any game that has decent sales these days to reach absolute zero given the wide variety of possible system configurations, many of which have issues that are not something we can fix. It's clear though that right now DW2 still has issues on some systems that are fine with the vast majority of other 3D games. We're aiming to make sure those are resolved, which will likely leave a very small percentage of systems that are either below minimum spec or have some kind of truly weird setup or conflicting software issues, but that's the case with almost any game. That's the point though where it will transition from a very high immediate priority to a more long-term ongoing task.
Replying to the question, "Do you have any metrics for how close you are to that goal
[mentioned above?"
Some, but as much qualitative as quantitative. Forum and e-mail and Discord feedback of course gives us a sense of how much each update has improved the situation and what major problems remain unresolved. The automated crash reporting does give us some insight into the pace/frequency/volume and type of crashes that are at least generating logs (these have decreased very significantly with 1.0.3.7 and later). The reporting form does the same, just selecting for those willing to send us a report. The critical issues survey gives us some insight into the perceptions of customers with issues on what they see as the major remaining issue areas.
So my main takeaways here are:
- The game is working much better since the 1.0.3.7 patch, at least on a technical level.
- Their current focus is still more on fixing/patching out technical issues, including a (probable) eventual engine upgrade.
- Therefore, focus probably won't turn towards addressing gameplay/mechanics issues for at least another few weeks. Once it does, we're likely looking at a good couple months or so to hammer out the worst problems. (Yes, I know he said 4-6 weeks, but we all know perfectly well it'll end up taking longer than that.)
- Ergo, I can safely ignore DW2 until at lest August, if not later. At this point, I think that's just as well.
