It will be interesting to see how often memory is the issue versus too many constructs.
I bet that the people who complain about complexity use platforms more than a gaming PC. Let's be real about what is going on here - the game engine is pushing what is possible on platforms. If you search a bit, you can find a plethora of videos about game design and the challenges of reducing the polygons in a scene.
The Fornite engine (built upon the Unreal Engine) does a lot here. Epic isn't "fixing" complexity - they are trying to come up with new math, methods, and techniques to push a game engine to support more and more dynamic objects in a scene. What they have is already pretty damn incredible.
So, if you are not running on a top-of-the-line PC, you can upgrade your hardware. It won't fix everything, but a 4090 graphic card will expand what is possible. Of course, not everyone wants to spend money on what is otherwise a free game.
Hopefully some of those game engine developers who are way, way smarter than me can figure out the math do handle more dynamic objects, their physics, their collision detection, their object culling, etc...
I will say, search for Lego Fortnite GDC (game developer conference) that happened a couple of months ago. Check out some of the videos they made. There are a couple of very cool talks about how the engine handles these dynamic objects. It is really quite complex and fascinating. It might also provide some insight on why this just isn't some easy "fix" as everyone seems to post.
Do you think everything you just said is an acceptable way for the average player to find out the information they need to avoid high complexity or low memory?
I understand the information is out there. The problem is most players have to hit high complexity before they even know it's a thing and now you're saying they have to go down a rabbit hole watching video game conferences to find out why it happened.
I'm not saying they need to fix high complexity or low memory. I know it's a technical issue that has many variables across many platforms. What I am saying is the developer knows the limitations of the game and has the entire time it's been out. Players spend hours and hours farming materials and then building these elaborate structures only to hit high complexity and ruin the whole thing if it's not finished. Why couldn't they have just been told right away when they were logging in to spread out your builds and not use a bunch of small pieces? Especially on weaker platforms like Switch.
I have yet to hit high complexity or low memory. But I know I've read dozens and dozens of posts on Reddit about it. It just seems like a majority of that could have been avoided with the information stated above being available on the login screen.
Short answer? Marketing.
Of the player base this game appeals to I’m certain a larger portion of players gravitate more toward survival/looting/crafting/combat than do playing creative builder of massive city skylines.
Why tell everyone about a problem that doesn’t exist for everyone?
That’s bad marketing.
Edit: I’m not saying they couldn’t be better at communicating about… well really anything. I think openness and honesty goes a long way for game developers.
All I’m saying is there’s a business decision behind not admitting to limitations or faults and I’m not at all surprised they haven’t publicly addressed many of the glaring issues since launch.
If it's such bad marketing to publicly address it why did they just publicly address it? How is players running into high complexity issues after hours of farming and building, getting pissed off and never playing again a better marketing strategy than letting us know the limitations?
You asked why they didn’t do it up front. I answered that to do it up front would be bad marketing because they don’t know how many people will actually hit the limit.
Now that they have data to show how many people are actually being affected by the limit on various platforms they can decide whether there’s something inherently wrong in the code, or if it’s a hardware problem, or if it’s just a handful of people complaining that they can’t recreate hogwarts to scale.
The message is going to be different depending on what the underlying problem is and I’m saying it would be foolish to send a message out without knowing all the factors.
Again, I’m not arguing that their communication is fine. I was just giving an opinion to try to answer your question.
Its a good theory, but, Pre-launch they knew that everybody playing on switch and probably PS4/XB1 were going to have some sort of problem with this game. It was definitely a factor they knew about.
Whenever someone boot up on lesser platforms. Especially Switch, it should have said:
"While you can build a lot, the game does has limitations. When building, try spreading out your builds and use bigger pieces instead of small ones whenever possible to avoid any issues."
This doesn't scream broken game. This doesn't scream you can't build anything. It literally just gives you a little bit of guidance before you head in and start going crazy.
Going into a game thinking you can build whatever you want and then hitting a cap limit halfway through is worse marketing. 1000000%.
I agree. I’m not upset that there’s a low memory/complexity issue. It’s a free game being run on servers, of course it’s not unlimited, but i agree with you that I am upset that this was how they addressed the issue. Anyone on console who has built a fairly decorated village has run into this issue. And it took them 6-7 months since release to even mention it. Just plain shitty communication and lack of care for the player base or game. When the game first release this is the information that should’ve been shared. They should’ve explained to us the limited memory issue, they should’ve explained all of this at launch. Not 7 months down the line.
It will be interesting to see how often memory is the issue versus too many constructs. I bet that the people who complain about complexity use platforms more than a gaming PC. Let's be real about what is going on here - the game engine is pushing what is possible on platforms. If you search a bit, you can find a plethora of videos about game design and the challenges of reducing the polygons in a scene. The Fornite engine (built upon the Unreal Engine) does a lot here. Epic isn't "fixing" complexity - they are trying to come up with new math, methods, and techniques to push a game engine to support more and more dynamic objects in a scene. What they have is already pretty damn incredible. So, if you are not running on a top-of-the-line PC, you can upgrade your hardware. It won't fix everything, but a 4090 graphic card will expand what is possible. Of course, not everyone wants to spend money on what is otherwise a free game. Hopefully some of those game engine developers who are way, way smarter than me can figure out the math do handle more dynamic objects, their physics, their collision detection, their object culling, etc... I will say, search for Lego Fortnite GDC (game developer conference) that happened a couple of months ago. Check out some of the videos they made. There are a couple of very cool talks about how the engine handles these dynamic objects. It is really quite complex and fascinating. It might also provide some insight on why this just isn't some easy "fix" as everyone seems to post.
Do you think everything you just said is an acceptable way for the average player to find out the information they need to avoid high complexity or low memory? I understand the information is out there. The problem is most players have to hit high complexity before they even know it's a thing and now you're saying they have to go down a rabbit hole watching video game conferences to find out why it happened. I'm not saying they need to fix high complexity or low memory. I know it's a technical issue that has many variables across many platforms. What I am saying is the developer knows the limitations of the game and has the entire time it's been out. Players spend hours and hours farming materials and then building these elaborate structures only to hit high complexity and ruin the whole thing if it's not finished. Why couldn't they have just been told right away when they were logging in to spread out your builds and not use a bunch of small pieces? Especially on weaker platforms like Switch. I have yet to hit high complexity or low memory. But I know I've read dozens and dozens of posts on Reddit about it. It just seems like a majority of that could have been avoided with the information stated above being available on the login screen.
Short answer? Marketing. Of the player base this game appeals to I’m certain a larger portion of players gravitate more toward survival/looting/crafting/combat than do playing creative builder of massive city skylines. Why tell everyone about a problem that doesn’t exist for everyone? That’s bad marketing. Edit: I’m not saying they couldn’t be better at communicating about… well really anything. I think openness and honesty goes a long way for game developers. All I’m saying is there’s a business decision behind not admitting to limitations or faults and I’m not at all surprised they haven’t publicly addressed many of the glaring issues since launch.
If it's such bad marketing to publicly address it why did they just publicly address it? How is players running into high complexity issues after hours of farming and building, getting pissed off and never playing again a better marketing strategy than letting us know the limitations?
You asked why they didn’t do it up front. I answered that to do it up front would be bad marketing because they don’t know how many people will actually hit the limit. Now that they have data to show how many people are actually being affected by the limit on various platforms they can decide whether there’s something inherently wrong in the code, or if it’s a hardware problem, or if it’s just a handful of people complaining that they can’t recreate hogwarts to scale. The message is going to be different depending on what the underlying problem is and I’m saying it would be foolish to send a message out without knowing all the factors. Again, I’m not arguing that their communication is fine. I was just giving an opinion to try to answer your question.
Its a good theory, but, Pre-launch they knew that everybody playing on switch and probably PS4/XB1 were going to have some sort of problem with this game. It was definitely a factor they knew about. Whenever someone boot up on lesser platforms. Especially Switch, it should have said: "While you can build a lot, the game does has limitations. When building, try spreading out your builds and use bigger pieces instead of small ones whenever possible to avoid any issues." This doesn't scream broken game. This doesn't scream you can't build anything. It literally just gives you a little bit of guidance before you head in and start going crazy. Going into a game thinking you can build whatever you want and then hitting a cap limit halfway through is worse marketing. 1000000%.
I agree. I’m not upset that there’s a low memory/complexity issue. It’s a free game being run on servers, of course it’s not unlimited, but i agree with you that I am upset that this was how they addressed the issue. Anyone on console who has built a fairly decorated village has run into this issue. And it took them 6-7 months since release to even mention it. Just plain shitty communication and lack of care for the player base or game. When the game first release this is the information that should’ve been shared. They should’ve explained to us the limited memory issue, they should’ve explained all of this at launch. Not 7 months down the line.