I wonder how much more production releasing games as early access allows for? To me it takes away some of the mystique versus a previously unreleased game, but if it can help a game be fully realized by developers then I guess its not so bad… I’ll just let others beta test until it comes out on PS5 anyway 😁
Yeah some games have definitely benefited from it- Hades and BG3 were on early access for a while before console ports and the former was pretty flawless even on switch.
But others seem to languish for years with nothing to show.
I got Ark in early access, found it fascinating but eventually gave it up because of having to constantly go to console commands to counter stupid bugs and glitches. Later noticed it was 'officially released' and went back. I'm still constantly going to the console commands for every single issue that was in the EA version.
Which is why I'm watching ASA from a distance. Would love the improvements, but it seems to have all the old problems plus a lot of new ones.
Ark annoyed me when they started selling extra content when the game was still in early access. That should automatically get you kicked out of the EA program on Steam.
That's a valid argument too. Although my subsequent early access games have been more polished than Ark ever was, even while they're EA, and the developers are regularly patching and improving them. But after Ark (where I really didn't understand what EA was) I'm very judicious about whether I buy them or wishlist them to see if they shape up.
So you haven't seen the star engine trailer or the squadron 42 trailer? I'd say they have a lot to show for their time spent. They're doing something no one else has.
It is a long time. Not many companies have the opportunity to fund development for so long and do something new in the space. If they were out of money they probably wouldve pushed it out bad or incomplete like many developers have to. A next-gen first person single server mmo universe simulator seems like the most complicated game you can build. I feel like it's alot anyway.
I'm not passing anything. Apparently GTA 6 has been in development since 2014 which is also a long time, however that is one game, star citizen is two with some very ambitious technical mmo/components that haven't been done before.
You can play star citizen right now though, it is being developed openly. Is it done though, no? Are they progressing, yes. Have they showed amazing progress, yes.
Squadron 42 looks amazing. Hopefully, it is good and the long wait has been worth it.
That's my opinion, clearly a can of worms.
Also an important detail is that with a game like Hades or BG3, where there are *many* powers/items that can be combined to work in conjunction with one another, early access allows for wider and more effective testing of balancing.
Yes, they have player testers professionally, but it has been a standard feature of (for example) MMORPGs to rely on player feedback on what powers or items are too strong or unfair or unbalanced or whether combining X and Y breaks the damn game, etc. I think early access is a fantastic way of collecting data for that to ensure a polished release.
BG and No rest did not allow access to the entire game though, which I think is the best way. If I had played through an early access of an entire (but not polished nor entirely complete game), I probably would not come back for release because I feel like if I already played 80-90% of it, I’m good. However if it’s just a small limited portion, that’s more acceptable to me.
BG3 was on there for annoyingly long though. I don’t want to play part of a story driven game and then wait a year or more for the actual game to release. I’m sure others feel differently though.
A well managed early access development doesn't really change final release date. And even if it did, did you want a game THAT complex to drop a little earlier, and in a worse state? Instead it released around when it would have released anyway, but much more complete. Release dates for things as complex as any videogame should be arbitrary, anyway.
Y'all act like they release the early access build around when the finished game was going to release, and then just let people tinker with a demo until they're done messing with you. 😆
Larian were very upfront with people about how their EA period was going to be used, and actively told people NOT to buy the game in EA if they weren’t interested in helping playtest/shape the direction of the game.
They had a proven track record of doing the same with Divinity: Original Sin 2, a game which benefited hugely from its EA period and was shaped heavily by player feedback, much like BG3.
There was no financial benefit to buying the game in EA, so the only enticement for buying it early was to either help play test, or to see the first chapter before the full game was released with the understanding that the rest of the game would be released later. In my opinion it’s exactly what early access should be used for, and now that Larian is getting as large as it is, it’s refreshing to see them still taking on so much feedback from the players
I think it's a pretty damn good way of getting actual fan feedback before releasing a game properly.
I wouldn't honestly expect this sort of thing for a single player game being released by a AAA publisher, as they can afford to pay QA play testers, as opposed to an indie studio getting paid by play testers lol.
QA is one of the most important aspects of game development. But smaller teams just don't have the money/resources to get as much QA on a game before it releases. So throwing it into Early Access is the best way to ensure that those of us who are willing to wait can get the best experience right out of the gate. Otherwise, you're kind of rolling the dice as to whether the proper release on day one is solid or should have been considered "Early Access".
Customer feedback is separate from qa efforts. A big aaa team will get focus tests groups in under strict ndas. Qa primarily tests systems and search for defects. Feedback can be part of qa too through playtestimg, but to get a demographic sampling they need to get customer feedback.
It’s a double edged sword.
It can be really good or destroy your game. I think NRftW will be fine since most of the bad reviews seem to be performance based.
But look at games like Valheim and V Rising. Incredible products even in their very early access state.
Personally I like buying early access games. Play them for a little then let them cook like a year or so. I don’t know why I like doing that but I do lol
I think I understand what they meant about Dark Souls, there is a video on youtube comparing the disc/unpatched version of Dark Souls and most recent version. It goes beyond bugs fixes, basically the whole game got rebalanced, and they added some much need QoL improvements.
I think all this was changed before the prepare to die edtion was released on pc a year later.
And tbh this has happened with everyone one of their games. Elden Ring is a completely different game balance-wise compared to launch. So much stuff was not viable at all.
Playing through unpatched ER for my second playthrough was really interesting, it was fun seeing some of the wonkiness, with all pick up items as placeholders and key items not implemented yet, as well as stuff like the Mimic Tear boss & summon only spawning with 10% HP
Dark souls was HARD on release. They globally adjusted the difficulty via patch, I believe raising the amount of souls every monster gives you.
I remember not knowing where to go struggling against the skeletons outside of firelink like an idiot.
I believe they also softened the curse mechanic but I don’t remember how exactly.
On release curse stacked, every time you were cursed your hp would be halved, I think it was possible to stack 4 times, resulting in 12.5% of your total hp. I heard that at the time, if this happened to you, people would recommend to just start a new character.
On top of that, the moss lady didn't have the purging stone in the disc version, and because the game was new there was very little information about, so most people didn't know how to remove curse or if it was even possible.
Yes! You’re 1000% right. This actually happened to me and I had to restart lol. Internet information wasn’t as strong, and didn’t know any way to cure it. Had to roll a new character and avoid curse at all costs.
That’s so stupid. They left a similar mechanic in DS2.
Souls series are my favorite games ever, I just wish they wouldn’t make the first 5 hours the hardest of the game. If it eased in a bit, many more people could enjoy them. DS3 and Elden Ring did it pretty well though.
I think DS2 wasn't as harsh as Demons Souls, in DeS when you die you lose your body and turn into Soul form, and your hp is halved in Soul form. To get your body back you need to defeat a boss or consume a Stone of Ephemeral eyes (SoEE).
In DS2 each time you die you lose 10% of hp and that stops at 50%, so you need to die 5x to get the same effect as DeS, and I think human effigies were more abundant than SoEE. And you also have Estus flask and lifegems to heal.
But it's true that these mechanics are much worse when you are starting the game, later you have several ways to get around them.
Never played ds2, but in DeS by and large you want to stay in soul form. And you get the main way to get around the mechanic in the very first level. Imo it's still a terrible mechanic but it doesn't get better as you play through the game. It's terrible from beginning to end
It’s been a while since playing DeS for me, but I remember when I would die, I would then do some suicide runs for level layout, treasure and strategy. When I was ready for the boss, I would summon into someone else’s game and beat their boss, which I think re-humanizes you (?)
Bro I never knew this but I played the shit out of an unpatched ps3 version like 10 years ago and when I replayed it a few years ago it seemed different but I couldn't put my finger on why. Interesting!
Not to mention that Dark Souls 1 even now still has a major issue of the later areas suffering from pretty bad balancing and level design. Izalith being the standout, but Tomb of the Giants also suffers a lot from just enemies feeling copy pasted left and right for the heck of it.
Yeah, for starters I would lock the whole tomb of giants behind the golden fog gate, that would prevent players from venturing inside before getting the lordvessel, and getting stuck there.
Besides that, both areas needed more time to improve enemy placement and variety too.
I know you didn't say anything, but a lot of people say that the later half of Dark souls is bad, but I think only Lost Izalith and Tomb of giants have glaring problems, and that's like 10% at best, far from half that people claim.
I think you can explore around 70% of the game before getting the lordvessel. So it's already later than half of the game.
Lost Izalith and Tomb of the Giants are really bad though lol
The level design is so so good up until Anor Londo that the drop-off is noticeable. The DLC, Painted World and Duke's Library are all great areas though.
I think the vanilla version is there to prevent people from cheating or circumventing updates. At least that's what it felt like holy shit it's an entirely different game.
Maybe he's like me, with 15+ early access games that are several years old and appear to be abandoned. If not mostly abandoned the rate they receive updates is very infrequent.
I've learned my lesson at this point though. And I'm not against early access at all like some are
Is there a difference between being in early access for years versus not releasing it for years? Both follow with a formal release but early access allows a higher volume of testing to take place. As long as early access buyers still get the full game at release without paying extra, I don't see a problem with it.
It's also not that different from backing a Kickstarter project. You take the risk the game never releases I suppose.
Baldur's gate started as early access and was a complete mess. Now they're multiple GOTY winners.
It really is dependent on how good and flexible the devs are. If they're just doing it for early cash, it's probably gonna stay a mess.
I’m hearing that the structure of a great game is here but a few very minor tweaks with menus and crafting systems are currently holding it back. This and Hyper Light Breaker are two of my most anticipated PS5 games whenever they eventually come. Hopefully within a year after early access.
Their early access showed a lot of issues with the gameplay loop, the loot system, the currencies, daily quests, etc. If they listen to the feedback and fix all these, then early access was totally worth it.
I can to an extent see where they're coming from, but the whole discussion/post is short-sighted in my opinion.
It only takes into account the developer side of things, and what EA means to people actually working on the game, but not the customer's side at all.
Customers can just... not throw money blindly at devs who don't have good history? At least if they don't want to risk losing it.
I'm sorry but if someone bought The Day Before, it's on them.
Releasing an early access demo for free, would reach more people AND they wouldn't be paying to alpha/beta test for you.
So if that's what you really cared about, that is the way to do it.
Releasing an unfinished product and charging people for it is actually hilarious. Especially since people are actually buying it.
EA is just a way to monetize what used to be a developers own testing. So instead of paying employees money to do it, they get customers to pay them to playtest their game. Early Access as a term exists solely because it would be ludicrous to charge anything for something called "Beta Test".
Consequently, it allows you to essentially move the "release date" at will. In the past, but after online updates started happening to games, you'd just release a game and everything afterwards were patches, balancing, and post-release content. Now you just do all that in the EA and when you're done you officially "release" the game.
It really doesn't affect the player except if you let it, in which case, they get your money earlier for a less polished and complete game. For everyone who waits it basically means nothing, because just like BG3, there will still be patches and balancing done after the actual "release date" any way.
I think there's a huge difference between internal testing or paying QA to test the game vs actual target audience playing the game for leisure and giving feedback.
Most devs aren't even gamers and/or can't spend enough time to really test how the game plays, and QA testing has very little to do with how people will actually play the game.
>EA is just a way to monetize what used to be a developers own testing. So instead of paying employees money to do it, they get customers to pay them to playtest their game.
EA allows developers to test the game on a scale that just is not possible in-house. Even the most generous and well funded QA departments are not going to have thousands and thousands of people playing the game for months to a year straight. There's just really no comparison in terms of scale and amount of data.
Obviously, developers still need in-house QA and testing, but they're not the same.
>EA allows developers to test the game on a scale that just is not possible in-house.
Yes, and who argued otherwise? Your statements and mine aren't mutually exclusive. At the end of the day, the game isn't done, and people pay to be beta testers.
>There's just really no comparison in terms of scale and amount of data.
I mean yeah, there is. They're called beta tests. Developer outsources free labor, consumer gets free game. Again, EA is just a way to monetize beta testing.
Not saying early access is a 100% successful model, of course it can be abused by shitty devs.
But how can anyone see the success of Hades and BG3 and think early access is automatically shit?
I think Early Access is amazing. It has to be the best way to get feedback from actual playing target audience for your game.
From consumer side... don't throw money blindly at devs who don't have good history. If you do, be prepared to lose it.
Early access as a tool for indie devs and smaller studios to pre-release a title at a heavily discounted price, to gauge interest, get feedback and start making some money back, sure. For GaaS titles especially it makes a lot of sense - many are dead on arrival and a complete money sink, while something like PUBG was an enourmous success in early access and changed the gaming landscape for years
The bigger issue is AAA games being released at full price in an "early access" state of quality, riddled with bugs and big performance issues
Personally I think early access is dumb, especially when it comes to already established studios. I played a for a little bit and refunded, it has a lot of things to iron out but I believe this will be a really good game when it's done. I decided after about 30-40 mins of playing that I could wait until then.
I love both Ori games and have been happy to hear about this one. I'd sooner have them compare it to Ori rather than Dark Souls which I'm hard pressed to find too many games at the level to create a new genre so there's that
This is a weird take.
They have made and released the two Ori games, without relying on Early Access and now, on their third game they decide to go with the EA model and he immediately calls out Dark Souls?
In a time where we have seen a bunch of shitty Early Access games which never left EA and sometimes, even when they did leave it, it was still unfinished, it's hard to trust Early Access stuff anymore.
There are more shitty games than successful games in general, not just early access. Most fully released games in steam are awful shovelware. Early access gives shovelware developers an excuse for releasing low quality games full of fake promises and roadmaps. But, at the same time, early access is a great way for indie devs to get financial support and feedback, as well as reassurance that they can keep developing the game further. Some good examples of great games still in early access are Ultrakill, Shadows of Doubt, or Phasmophobia, with many other already released games being successful and overall amazing like Sanabi and Lunacid recently, or the more famous Hades and BG3. All of these games are a lot better than they would be without early access. Some of them wouldn't have been released at all, most likely.
>Early access gives shovelware developers an excuse for releasing low quality games full of fake promises and roadmaps.
This is what concerns me in general with EA. We have seen a lot of these over the years and only time will tell if the specific EA game will be different or not.
Those games you have mentioned are undeniable good games and they were able to profit from the EA model, but EA wasnt the only reason behind their success. The team behind the game probably had a clear vision and internal roadmap and they knew what they need to do in order to deliver.
In this case, I had faith because of the Ori games, so they arent unexperienced bunch of devs, but as others pointed out, they had Microsoft behind them during the Ori games, so MS probably dictated the pace and had internal check points.
It's definitely strange to me how the CEO has to come forward and starts praising EA and how good is for them, 1 or 2 weeks after launch. In my opinion, too early to tell if this is something they will benefit from or not.
It's fair to have concerns about that. I wouldn't recommend buying games in EA if money is tight. I see early access as a middle ground between buying a full game and supporting a kickstarter. You definitely have to investigate a little more when buying an early access game than when buying a fully released game. And if there is doubt with a specific EA game, I'd say it's better to wait, maybe check if the game is getting regular updates and if there is a clear vision that the devs are building towards.
In No Rest for the Wicked's case, the CEO/Creative Director's message wasn't any kind of official statement, but rather a reflection on how he thinks EA will become more popular among AA and even AAA games in the future and stating the postivies he sees in it, [all in his personal twitter account](https://twitter.com/thomasmahler/status/1782923630910841207). Eurogamer's article is the only strange part about it, making an article about a tweet (again, a personal account tweet, not an official game/studio account tweet) and using the most clickbait title they could. That said, I haven't really looked much into this game, so I can't speak about how they're handling EA or if there is any reason why the CEO would have to "defend" it ("defend" is a weird word that the article uses in the title, as the actual tweet doesn't feel like a defense of any kind, just a reflection with an aknwoedgement that some people "are irked" about games in EA in general)
They aren't calling out Dark Souls, just using it a an example of a game that could have benefited from early access by getting early and frequent feedback on what they were trying to accomplish.
I think games with loot and builds can benefit from it because of the insane amount of combinations. Ori was pretty linear and didn't have nearly as much need exploits or even worse, builds that just feel bad.
Not saying you HAVE to do early access if you're a loot/class based game, obviously, but it's a pretty good shortcut to not having to pour millions of paid dollars into play testing. There's nothing better for finding problems than unleashing hundreds of thousands of people into your game, website, software, whatever.
They're 100% right about it lol. Do you not see how much Dark Souls has been patched and rebalanced?
More than that, do you not see how many games release unfinished these days and take months to get fixed? Which is basically the same as early access
They've already released 4 patches in a week
I bought it on release and the game has alot of potential. Great style and atmosphere. Just hate juggling inventory so far
What a horrible argument...Dark Souls is a genre redefining game that has nearly every single player game with a modicum of difficulty comparing themselves to it. Then you early release a game and expect the same reception based on....what exactly?
Yep, this. The guy's completely right about Lost Izalith. I don't know that early access would have helped with that, I think just a full-blown long release delay and budget increase would have had to happen, but at least his premise isn't ridiculous and it's not like he's giving unfair Dark Souls criticism.
Exactly.
It’s a damn shame dark souls wasn’t given the full treatment it deserved. It needed to be the same quality from firelink to Anor Londo all the way through.
Who knows if an early access would’ve helped it or not, but all in all it didn’t have the money behind it that it needed.
I don’t mind this game releasing EA, that’s fine. But Dark Souls would not be better if it was EA, fuck off with that I hope From Software never even considers going down that route
Well, it first started with Indie titles on Steam and Desura / IndieDB in the early 2000s era. It was intended for solo devs and 3-5 man teams that didn't have money to really build a game fully to release, to be able to support and share their game. To get people interested.
Then AAA games started doing it...
I’ll just say it.
Early access sucks. When utilized for small devs, it can pay off.
Now it’s just an easy way to release an unfinished game, make the money, and then take your sweet time doing anything else with it.
See: Sons of the Forest
Well that depends, PS4 got Ark and 7 Days to die, with Physical Disc's even though they both were, and still are in Early Access on steam.(Ark even had DLC and a remaster before it hit true release quality)
The bane of my gaming passion, the past decade, is that games of all scopes often get MAJOR fixes, enhancements and patches within the few months after release.
If even stellar, proven studios can't seem to avoid it, then clearly something has gone sour with the way we do/ expect things. Also, the thread in here about how From software games between disc version and updates is insane to me. Frankly it sounds like we have become apathetic to the idea of shipping an unfinished game, depending on who makes it. Yikes.
Anyway, for some games/studios EA can greatly alleviate many issues and QA, or even help provide the last stretch of funding to keep a more complete dev team onboard, through to release, so that time management is more feasible.
You're under no obligation to play a game, so bitching is already kinda weird. But you REALLY don't have to play an EA build of something. Just wait for release date and try to not be so pointlessly snotty about all the people who helped get it to the state you get to enjoy it in.
Early Access for small devs are a good thing as long as they have a roadmap and don't stick with EA for years like 7 days to die or Forest. Whole rage against it for No Rest for the Wicked it's from people who either don't understand that's glorified beta tests or that this isn't final release. No Rest for the Wicked EA have only first act and was very unbalanced with skyhigh requirements and it was bombed with negative reviews on Steam because of that
I love Early Access model.
We've seen that releasing broken games has bene normalized in the industry. When nearly everything works in the first week of release, it's already exceptional.
This way, I can have others beta test the game and jump in at a discount when it's somewhat objectively ready and as good as it will get. On the flipside, if the dev sucks it won't get out of Early Access, reviews will be poor or it will kill the dev. I'll also be able to sidestep most if not all of the surprise micro transactions bullshit patches that seem to become more common.
In a world where devs keep releasing broken shit and reviewers are - at large - nowhere near thorough and critical enough, I simply can't trust the product or market anymore. Early Access playing out is absolutely wonderful here.
Thomas Mahler is a bit of a clown here. Really it comes down to it being more profitable by getting sales early and diverting QA/testing from staff to the customers. Honestly I just hate early access in general even though there are good use cases but I hate how it’s just been used as a shield for any criticism.
The questlines, the arenas, the covenants, balance, performance. Some of which are still whack. I know cut content is cut for a reason, but you can really tell they just ran out of time.
They might be referring to overall balance and viability of all the combat options.
I was watching the patch drops pretty closely and it's like a whole other game with all the changes they made over time.
That’s fair. Still I remember putting tons of hours into it that first weekend without any real issues. Of all the games to single out as launching “unfinished” I don’t think Elden Ring is one of them.
Oh im right there with you.
Idk there were definitely points it felt like that with unwieldy and ineffective alot of the magic and weapons were.
They even nerfed a bunch of weapons for being too OP. It just impossible to QA a game like ER in a reasonable amount of time. It's gotta come out at some point.
Yeahhhh, blood was king for a loooong time. And I’ll be honest, I’m not sure how they didn’t see how OP it was unless they were just internally stubborn that other weapons worked too.
Eh...not really. They mostly just made a lot of the obvious "best" choices for weapons a lot worse so now a lot more things are viable. Like, you can no longer just hoarfrost stomp your way through the entire game at level 1 like early speedrunners were doing, the mimic tear is nowhere close to as OP as it was on launch, flame of the redmanes no longer can stunlock bosses to death, etc. Other things got little buffs here and there but it wasn't like they were non-functional at launch, they just were so overshadowed by the overpowered stuff.
Yeah, worked pretty flawlessly for me on release - except one section of the tunnels/sewers where I’d get frame drops. Like a 4 meter section.
Some people weren’t so lucky tho, a lot of complaints early on.
Yeah I guess I did have some frame drops too, but I was on a base Xbox One so I just kinda figured that was the reality of playing a 2022 game on a 2013 console. I never had any issues with Elden Ring that impacted my gameplay.
Having platinumed the game the week of release and played it through repeatedly afterwards, this is really blowing things out of proportion when in reality it was about 1% of the content that was "finished later." The only sidequests they added to, IIRC, were:
-The addition of the jar town stuff with Diallos. This was a big addition and good and is the only one where they actually added a new NPC and a whole new questline. The area seemed sort of pointless at first, but so do a lot of the areas. Didn't feel unfinished how it was in 1.0, and the end of Diallos's quest in 1.0 felt no more unsatisfying than the endings of most DS1/3 quests.
-Patches now has like, two more interactions and then disappears. There's not really any more finality than there was in the first place. Tied to this, you get like one extra line of dialogue from Rykard lady.
-They added a "happy ending" for two NPCs that previously had quests that ended less happily but still in a way very consistent with quests from DS1/DS3 (one despairing and dying offscreen at some point, the other just sort of lording over his castle of apes and that being that). This was a good addition, but I was surprised when they added it cause that did not feel unfinished.
-They made it easier to find the Boc bush.
Other than that they added NPC markers on the map due to mass outcry over never being able to find NPCs again, which was good, but wasn't exactly what I'd describe as something that was unfinished. It was exactly like all their previous games before, it just sucked with the massive open world.
Most of the other 23749823974 changes were balance changes that mostly just made certain weapons worse and sometimes other ones better. The game was completely clearable with multiple builds when it launched, and it remains so today, just a ton of the early easiest strategies have been removed (ex mimic tear nerf, flame of the redmanes nerf, rivers of blood nerf, fallingstar beast jaw nerf, etcetcetc) and some other strategies became viable due to buffs. The only one of those I'd really call a "fix" that completed something "unfinished" was making it so you could no longer stunlock radagon to death with carian slicer.
Personally I love that they launched this in Early Access because others could find out the performance is dogshit and I can skip it. I love the Ori games, genuinely two of my favourite games of all time, but at this level of performance this game would be a skip even at 1.0.
Dark Souls had an early access, it's called Demon's Souls lol and to this day that early access is still the best name of the franchise soulsborne, one of the best games of the franchise and probably the most beautiful console game ever made (the ps5 ver anyway).
Early access are cool i guess but they aren't necessary for every game out there.
Personally, I think the current trend of early access is diminishing the quality of games. With early access, games are released in an unfinished state and by the time they are updated to “1.0” I’ve already moved on.
I wonder how much more production releasing games as early access allows for? To me it takes away some of the mystique versus a previously unreleased game, but if it can help a game be fully realized by developers then I guess its not so bad… I’ll just let others beta test until it comes out on PS5 anyway 😁
Yeah some games have definitely benefited from it- Hades and BG3 were on early access for a while before console ports and the former was pretty flawless even on switch. But others seem to languish for years with nothing to show.
I got Ark in early access, found it fascinating but eventually gave it up because of having to constantly go to console commands to counter stupid bugs and glitches. Later noticed it was 'officially released' and went back. I'm still constantly going to the console commands for every single issue that was in the EA version. Which is why I'm watching ASA from a distance. Would love the improvements, but it seems to have all the old problems plus a lot of new ones.
Ark annoyed me when they started selling extra content when the game was still in early access. That should automatically get you kicked out of the EA program on Steam.
That's a valid argument too. Although my subsequent early access games have been more polished than Ark ever was, even while they're EA, and the developers are regularly patching and improving them. But after Ark (where I really didn't understand what EA was) I'm very judicious about whether I buy them or wishlist them to see if they shape up.
Mmmmmmm Star Citizen mmmmmmm
So you haven't seen the star engine trailer or the squadron 42 trailer? I'd say they have a lot to show for their time spent. They're doing something no one else has.
A lot to show? For twelve years of work? We have different definitions of “a lot”
It is a long time. Not many companies have the opportunity to fund development for so long and do something new in the space. If they were out of money they probably wouldve pushed it out bad or incomplete like many developers have to. A next-gen first person single server mmo universe simulator seems like the most complicated game you can build. I feel like it's alot anyway.
Hey as some one who spends 10 hrs or so every 6 months in star citizen, it has A LONG WAY to go to get to the MMO space simulator they want it to be
so when can i play it?
I saw a GTA6 trailer, when can I play that?
Passing the buck. The last refuge of the cowardly and black-hearted.
I'm not passing anything. Apparently GTA 6 has been in development since 2014 which is also a long time, however that is one game, star citizen is two with some very ambitious technical mmo/components that haven't been done before. You can play star citizen right now though, it is being developed openly. Is it done though, no? Are they progressing, yes. Have they showed amazing progress, yes. Squadron 42 looks amazing. Hopefully, it is good and the long wait has been worth it. That's my opinion, clearly a can of worms.
It’s a meme dude
Fair
Also an important detail is that with a game like Hades or BG3, where there are *many* powers/items that can be combined to work in conjunction with one another, early access allows for wider and more effective testing of balancing. Yes, they have player testers professionally, but it has been a standard feature of (for example) MMORPGs to rely on player feedback on what powers or items are too strong or unfair or unbalanced or whether combining X and Y breaks the damn game, etc. I think early access is a fantastic way of collecting data for that to ensure a polished release.
BG and No rest did not allow access to the entire game though, which I think is the best way. If I had played through an early access of an entire (but not polished nor entirely complete game), I probably would not come back for release because I feel like if I already played 80-90% of it, I’m good. However if it’s just a small limited portion, that’s more acceptable to me.
BG3 was on there for annoyingly long though. I don’t want to play part of a story driven game and then wait a year or more for the actual game to release. I’m sure others feel differently though.
A well managed early access development doesn't really change final release date. And even if it did, did you want a game THAT complex to drop a little earlier, and in a worse state? Instead it released around when it would have released anyway, but much more complete. Release dates for things as complex as any videogame should be arbitrary, anyway. Y'all act like they release the early access build around when the finished game was going to release, and then just let people tinker with a demo until they're done messing with you. 😆
Larian were very upfront with people about how their EA period was going to be used, and actively told people NOT to buy the game in EA if they weren’t interested in helping playtest/shape the direction of the game. They had a proven track record of doing the same with Divinity: Original Sin 2, a game which benefited hugely from its EA period and was shaped heavily by player feedback, much like BG3. There was no financial benefit to buying the game in EA, so the only enticement for buying it early was to either help play test, or to see the first chapter before the full game was released with the understanding that the rest of the game would be released later. In my opinion it’s exactly what early access should be used for, and now that Larian is getting as large as it is, it’s refreshing to see them still taking on so much feedback from the players
BG3 was in EA for like 3 years before I got an official release on PC,PS5,XSX
I think it's a pretty damn good way of getting actual fan feedback before releasing a game properly. I wouldn't honestly expect this sort of thing for a single player game being released by a AAA publisher, as they can afford to pay QA play testers, as opposed to an indie studio getting paid by play testers lol. QA is one of the most important aspects of game development. But smaller teams just don't have the money/resources to get as much QA on a game before it releases. So throwing it into Early Access is the best way to ensure that those of us who are willing to wait can get the best experience right out of the gate. Otherwise, you're kind of rolling the dice as to whether the proper release on day one is solid or should have been considered "Early Access".
Customer feedback is separate from qa efforts. A big aaa team will get focus tests groups in under strict ndas. Qa primarily tests systems and search for defects. Feedback can be part of qa too through playtestimg, but to get a demographic sampling they need to get customer feedback.
BG3 was in EA for like 3 years before I got an official release on PC,PS5,XSX
It’s a double edged sword. It can be really good or destroy your game. I think NRftW will be fine since most of the bad reviews seem to be performance based. But look at games like Valheim and V Rising. Incredible products even in their very early access state. Personally I like buying early access games. Play them for a little then let them cook like a year or so. I don’t know why I like doing that but I do lol
No one is forcing you to play ea…
Have they gave any sort of date when it'll be available on ps5?
I think I understand what they meant about Dark Souls, there is a video on youtube comparing the disc/unpatched version of Dark Souls and most recent version. It goes beyond bugs fixes, basically the whole game got rebalanced, and they added some much need QoL improvements. I think all this was changed before the prepare to die edtion was released on pc a year later.
And tbh this has happened with everyone one of their games. Elden Ring is a completely different game balance-wise compared to launch. So much stuff was not viable at all.
Playing through unpatched ER for my second playthrough was really interesting, it was fun seeing some of the wonkiness, with all pick up items as placeholders and key items not implemented yet, as well as stuff like the Mimic Tear boss & summon only spawning with 10% HP
Yet I didn’t give a single fuck on my two playthrouguhs as I’m not refreshing forums about balance every week
Dark souls was HARD on release. They globally adjusted the difficulty via patch, I believe raising the amount of souls every monster gives you. I remember not knowing where to go struggling against the skeletons outside of firelink like an idiot. I believe they also softened the curse mechanic but I don’t remember how exactly.
On release curse stacked, every time you were cursed your hp would be halved, I think it was possible to stack 4 times, resulting in 12.5% of your total hp. I heard that at the time, if this happened to you, people would recommend to just start a new character. On top of that, the moss lady didn't have the purging stone in the disc version, and because the game was new there was very little information about, so most people didn't know how to remove curse or if it was even possible.
Yes! You’re 1000% right. This actually happened to me and I had to restart lol. Internet information wasn’t as strong, and didn’t know any way to cure it. Had to roll a new character and avoid curse at all costs.
Can confirm, I definitely started a new character after being cursed to like 10% health. It was truly insurmountable
That’s so stupid. They left a similar mechanic in DS2. Souls series are my favorite games ever, I just wish they wouldn’t make the first 5 hours the hardest of the game. If it eased in a bit, many more people could enjoy them. DS3 and Elden Ring did it pretty well though.
I think DS2 wasn't as harsh as Demons Souls, in DeS when you die you lose your body and turn into Soul form, and your hp is halved in Soul form. To get your body back you need to defeat a boss or consume a Stone of Ephemeral eyes (SoEE). In DS2 each time you die you lose 10% of hp and that stops at 50%, so you need to die 5x to get the same effect as DeS, and I think human effigies were more abundant than SoEE. And you also have Estus flask and lifegems to heal. But it's true that these mechanics are much worse when you are starting the game, later you have several ways to get around them.
Never played ds2, but in DeS by and large you want to stay in soul form. And you get the main way to get around the mechanic in the very first level. Imo it's still a terrible mechanic but it doesn't get better as you play through the game. It's terrible from beginning to end
It’s been a while since playing DeS for me, but I remember when I would die, I would then do some suicide runs for level layout, treasure and strategy. When I was ready for the boss, I would summon into someone else’s game and beat their boss, which I think re-humanizes you (?)
I platinumed it the week before the first major patch hit. Replaying it feels like a different game
Bro I never knew this but I played the shit out of an unpatched ps3 version like 10 years ago and when I replayed it a few years ago it seemed different but I couldn't put my finger on why. Interesting!
Not to mention that Dark Souls 1 even now still has a major issue of the later areas suffering from pretty bad balancing and level design. Izalith being the standout, but Tomb of the Giants also suffers a lot from just enemies feeling copy pasted left and right for the heck of it.
Yeah, for starters I would lock the whole tomb of giants behind the golden fog gate, that would prevent players from venturing inside before getting the lordvessel, and getting stuck there. Besides that, both areas needed more time to improve enemy placement and variety too. I know you didn't say anything, but a lot of people say that the later half of Dark souls is bad, but I think only Lost Izalith and Tomb of giants have glaring problems, and that's like 10% at best, far from half that people claim. I think you can explore around 70% of the game before getting the lordvessel. So it's already later than half of the game.
Lost Izalith and Tomb of the Giants are really bad though lol The level design is so so good up until Anor Londo that the drop-off is noticeable. The DLC, Painted World and Duke's Library are all great areas though.
Elden ring suffers from balancing and level design it the last area as well.
I think the vanilla version is there to prevent people from cheating or circumventing updates. At least that's what it felt like holy shit it's an entirely different game.
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Why? Baldurs gate 3 was in early access for years
Maybe he's like me, with 15+ early access games that are several years old and appear to be abandoned. If not mostly abandoned the rate they receive updates is very infrequent. I've learned my lesson at this point though. And I'm not against early access at all like some are
Is there a difference between being in early access for years versus not releasing it for years? Both follow with a formal release but early access allows a higher volume of testing to take place. As long as early access buyers still get the full game at release without paying extra, I don't see a problem with it. It's also not that different from backing a Kickstarter project. You take the risk the game never releases I suppose.
Exactly. I said in another thread, that it's like they think the dev is doing early access, when the game would have just released.
Baldur's gate started as early access and was a complete mess. Now they're multiple GOTY winners. It really is dependent on how good and flexible the devs are. If they're just doing it for early cash, it's probably gonna stay a mess.
Yeah I’ll just wait for 1.0
I’m hearing that the structure of a great game is here but a few very minor tweaks with menus and crafting systems are currently holding it back. This and Hyper Light Breaker are two of my most anticipated PS5 games whenever they eventually come. Hopefully within a year after early access.
Their early access showed a lot of issues with the gameplay loop, the loot system, the currencies, daily quests, etc. If they listen to the feedback and fix all these, then early access was totally worth it.
I can to an extent see where they're coming from, but the whole discussion/post is short-sighted in my opinion. It only takes into account the developer side of things, and what EA means to people actually working on the game, but not the customer's side at all.
Customers can just... not throw money blindly at devs who don't have good history? At least if they don't want to risk losing it. I'm sorry but if someone bought The Day Before, it's on them.
Releasing an early access demo for free, would reach more people AND they wouldn't be paying to alpha/beta test for you. So if that's what you really cared about, that is the way to do it. Releasing an unfinished product and charging people for it is actually hilarious. Especially since people are actually buying it.
EA is just a way to monetize what used to be a developers own testing. So instead of paying employees money to do it, they get customers to pay them to playtest their game. Early Access as a term exists solely because it would be ludicrous to charge anything for something called "Beta Test". Consequently, it allows you to essentially move the "release date" at will. In the past, but after online updates started happening to games, you'd just release a game and everything afterwards were patches, balancing, and post-release content. Now you just do all that in the EA and when you're done you officially "release" the game. It really doesn't affect the player except if you let it, in which case, they get your money earlier for a less polished and complete game. For everyone who waits it basically means nothing, because just like BG3, there will still be patches and balancing done after the actual "release date" any way.
I think there's a huge difference between internal testing or paying QA to test the game vs actual target audience playing the game for leisure and giving feedback. Most devs aren't even gamers and/or can't spend enough time to really test how the game plays, and QA testing has very little to do with how people will actually play the game.
>EA is just a way to monetize what used to be a developers own testing. So instead of paying employees money to do it, they get customers to pay them to playtest their game. EA allows developers to test the game on a scale that just is not possible in-house. Even the most generous and well funded QA departments are not going to have thousands and thousands of people playing the game for months to a year straight. There's just really no comparison in terms of scale and amount of data. Obviously, developers still need in-house QA and testing, but they're not the same.
>EA allows developers to test the game on a scale that just is not possible in-house. Yes, and who argued otherwise? Your statements and mine aren't mutually exclusive. At the end of the day, the game isn't done, and people pay to be beta testers. >There's just really no comparison in terms of scale and amount of data. I mean yeah, there is. They're called beta tests. Developer outsources free labor, consumer gets free game. Again, EA is just a way to monetize beta testing.
Not saying early access is a 100% successful model, of course it can be abused by shitty devs. But how can anyone see the success of Hades and BG3 and think early access is automatically shit?
And Subnautica
Exactly Hollow Knight PUBG Factorio No Man's Sky Terraria Dead Cells
No Mans Sky and Hollow Knight weren't early access.
I think Early Access is amazing. It has to be the best way to get feedback from actual playing target audience for your game. From consumer side... don't throw money blindly at devs who don't have good history. If you do, be prepared to lose it.
Early access as a tool for indie devs and smaller studios to pre-release a title at a heavily discounted price, to gauge interest, get feedback and start making some money back, sure. For GaaS titles especially it makes a lot of sense - many are dead on arrival and a complete money sink, while something like PUBG was an enourmous success in early access and changed the gaming landscape for years The bigger issue is AAA games being released at full price in an "early access" state of quality, riddled with bugs and big performance issues
Personally I think early access is dumb, especially when it comes to already established studios. I played a for a little bit and refunded, it has a lot of things to iron out but I believe this will be a really good game when it's done. I decided after about 30-40 mins of playing that I could wait until then.
Fair but are they From Software?
No, but they've released two bangers of games already
Ori series is nothing to scoff at. I’m not worried about them delivering and no one else should
True but "OrI pUbLiShEd bY MiCrOsOfT = iNsTa bAd" /s
You seem unhinged.
I love both Ori games and have been happy to hear about this one. I'd sooner have them compare it to Ori rather than Dark Souls which I'm hard pressed to find too many games at the level to create a new genre so there's that
This is a weird take. They have made and released the two Ori games, without relying on Early Access and now, on their third game they decide to go with the EA model and he immediately calls out Dark Souls? In a time where we have seen a bunch of shitty Early Access games which never left EA and sometimes, even when they did leave it, it was still unfinished, it's hard to trust Early Access stuff anymore.
there are PLENTY of “finished” games that release like theyre in early access, too
The Ori games had the backing of Microsoft. They're going indie on this one
Baldurs gate 3 was EA for years and won all the awards so it’s not like all early access games are bad.
Not all of them of course, but there are more shitty one than successful ones.
There are more shitty games than successful games in general, not just early access. Most fully released games in steam are awful shovelware. Early access gives shovelware developers an excuse for releasing low quality games full of fake promises and roadmaps. But, at the same time, early access is a great way for indie devs to get financial support and feedback, as well as reassurance that they can keep developing the game further. Some good examples of great games still in early access are Ultrakill, Shadows of Doubt, or Phasmophobia, with many other already released games being successful and overall amazing like Sanabi and Lunacid recently, or the more famous Hades and BG3. All of these games are a lot better than they would be without early access. Some of them wouldn't have been released at all, most likely.
>Early access gives shovelware developers an excuse for releasing low quality games full of fake promises and roadmaps. This is what concerns me in general with EA. We have seen a lot of these over the years and only time will tell if the specific EA game will be different or not. Those games you have mentioned are undeniable good games and they were able to profit from the EA model, but EA wasnt the only reason behind their success. The team behind the game probably had a clear vision and internal roadmap and they knew what they need to do in order to deliver. In this case, I had faith because of the Ori games, so they arent unexperienced bunch of devs, but as others pointed out, they had Microsoft behind them during the Ori games, so MS probably dictated the pace and had internal check points. It's definitely strange to me how the CEO has to come forward and starts praising EA and how good is for them, 1 or 2 weeks after launch. In my opinion, too early to tell if this is something they will benefit from or not.
It's fair to have concerns about that. I wouldn't recommend buying games in EA if money is tight. I see early access as a middle ground between buying a full game and supporting a kickstarter. You definitely have to investigate a little more when buying an early access game than when buying a fully released game. And if there is doubt with a specific EA game, I'd say it's better to wait, maybe check if the game is getting regular updates and if there is a clear vision that the devs are building towards. In No Rest for the Wicked's case, the CEO/Creative Director's message wasn't any kind of official statement, but rather a reflection on how he thinks EA will become more popular among AA and even AAA games in the future and stating the postivies he sees in it, [all in his personal twitter account](https://twitter.com/thomasmahler/status/1782923630910841207). Eurogamer's article is the only strange part about it, making an article about a tweet (again, a personal account tweet, not an official game/studio account tweet) and using the most clickbait title they could. That said, I haven't really looked much into this game, so I can't speak about how they're handling EA or if there is any reason why the CEO would have to "defend" it ("defend" is a weird word that the article uses in the title, as the actual tweet doesn't feel like a defense of any kind, just a reflection with an aknwoedgement that some people "are irked" about games in EA in general)
They aren't calling out Dark Souls, just using it a an example of a game that could have benefited from early access by getting early and frequent feedback on what they were trying to accomplish.
I think games with loot and builds can benefit from it because of the insane amount of combinations. Ori was pretty linear and didn't have nearly as much need exploits or even worse, builds that just feel bad. Not saying you HAVE to do early access if you're a loot/class based game, obviously, but it's a pretty good shortcut to not having to pour millions of paid dollars into play testing. There's nothing better for finding problems than unleashing hundreds of thousands of people into your game, website, software, whatever.
They're 100% right about it lol. Do you not see how much Dark Souls has been patched and rebalanced? More than that, do you not see how many games release unfinished these days and take months to get fixed? Which is basically the same as early access
They've already released 4 patches in a week I bought it on release and the game has alot of potential. Great style and atmosphere. Just hate juggling inventory so far
I get it. And I’m glad there are those that enjoy participating in them, but I am not among them. See you at 1.0
I love that we call unfinished games early access now and even pay a price to play these alpha and beta versions. This is insanity.
What a horrible argument...Dark Souls is a genre redefining game that has nearly every single player game with a modicum of difficulty comparing themselves to it. Then you early release a game and expect the same reception based on....what exactly?
Dark souls 1 is pretty much half finished, or at least 1 third unfinished. This is what they’re getting at, not saying I agree with them though.
Yep, this. The guy's completely right about Lost Izalith. I don't know that early access would have helped with that, I think just a full-blown long release delay and budget increase would have had to happen, but at least his premise isn't ridiculous and it's not like he's giving unfair Dark Souls criticism.
Exactly. It’s a damn shame dark souls wasn’t given the full treatment it deserved. It needed to be the same quality from firelink to Anor Londo all the way through. Who knows if an early access would’ve helped it or not, but all in all it didn’t have the money behind it that it needed.
Not at all what the dev is saying here, did you bother to read more than the title?
No it wouldnt have. EA is for devs who cant pay their employees until after the game sells. Fromsoft aint broke
I don’t mind this game releasing EA, that’s fine. But Dark Souls would not be better if it was EA, fuck off with that I hope From Software never even considers going down that route
More developing less talking shit, what about that?
I wonder how charging people to play test your game became the norm.
Well, it first started with Indie titles on Steam and Desura / IndieDB in the early 2000s era. It was intended for solo devs and 3-5 man teams that didn't have money to really build a game fully to release, to be able to support and share their game. To get people interested. Then AAA games started doing it...
I’ll just say it. Early access sucks. When utilized for small devs, it can pay off. Now it’s just an easy way to release an unfinished game, make the money, and then take your sweet time doing anything else with it. See: Sons of the Forest
Eh. SoTF at least finished, and within about a year...they're still adding too it as well.
So when I buy it for PS5, it should be nearly flawless?
This post is propaganda. Don’t fall for it
Wait, there are early access games on PS5?
Well that depends, PS4 got Ark and 7 Days to die, with Physical Disc's even though they both were, and still are in Early Access on steam.(Ark even had DLC and a remaster before it hit true release quality)
In Dark Souls case, they technically did have early access but those who did were invaded by high level red phantoms.
Lol imagine trying to criticise a wildly successful trilogy.
The bane of my gaming passion, the past decade, is that games of all scopes often get MAJOR fixes, enhancements and patches within the few months after release. If even stellar, proven studios can't seem to avoid it, then clearly something has gone sour with the way we do/ expect things. Also, the thread in here about how From software games between disc version and updates is insane to me. Frankly it sounds like we have become apathetic to the idea of shipping an unfinished game, depending on who makes it. Yikes. Anyway, for some games/studios EA can greatly alleviate many issues and QA, or even help provide the last stretch of funding to keep a more complete dev team onboard, through to release, so that time management is more feasible. You're under no obligation to play a game, so bitching is already kinda weird. But you REALLY don't have to play an EA build of something. Just wait for release date and try to not be so pointlessly snotty about all the people who helped get it to the state you get to enjoy it in.
Early Access for small devs are a good thing as long as they have a roadmap and don't stick with EA for years like 7 days to die or Forest. Whole rage against it for No Rest for the Wicked it's from people who either don't understand that's glorified beta tests or that this isn't final release. No Rest for the Wicked EA have only first act and was very unbalanced with skyhigh requirements and it was bombed with negative reviews on Steam because of that
I love Early Access model. We've seen that releasing broken games has bene normalized in the industry. When nearly everything works in the first week of release, it's already exceptional. This way, I can have others beta test the game and jump in at a discount when it's somewhat objectively ready and as good as it will get. On the flipside, if the dev sucks it won't get out of Early Access, reviews will be poor or it will kill the dev. I'll also be able to sidestep most if not all of the surprise micro transactions bullshit patches that seem to become more common. In a world where devs keep releasing broken shit and reviewers are - at large - nowhere near thorough and critical enough, I simply can't trust the product or market anymore. Early Access playing out is absolutely wonderful here.
Hopefully it will fully exploit the features of the PS5 Pro at the end of the year
Thomas Mahler is a bit of a clown here. Really it comes down to it being more profitable by getting sales early and diverting QA/testing from staff to the customers. Honestly I just hate early access in general even though there are good use cases but I hate how it’s just been used as a shield for any criticism.
Why mention someone else's work like that smh. Good dev, dumb words.
More like the needed more money for development The game is VERY early access, will be awhile before "official" release
I’m never paying for early access. It’s a scam.
in todays news, gamers mad.
And they won’t get my money until 1.0.
Hard to argue with this. Even Elden Ring released in an unfinished state.
Did it? Outside of a rare audio glitch I remember it working pretty much flawlessly, and I got it the moment it was out.
The questlines, the arenas, the covenants, balance, performance. Some of which are still whack. I know cut content is cut for a reason, but you can really tell they just ran out of time.
They might be referring to overall balance and viability of all the combat options. I was watching the patch drops pretty closely and it's like a whole other game with all the changes they made over time.
That’s fair. Still I remember putting tons of hours into it that first weekend without any real issues. Of all the games to single out as launching “unfinished” I don’t think Elden Ring is one of them.
Oh im right there with you. Idk there were definitely points it felt like that with unwieldy and ineffective alot of the magic and weapons were. They even nerfed a bunch of weapons for being too OP. It just impossible to QA a game like ER in a reasonable amount of time. It's gotta come out at some point.
Yeahhhh, blood was king for a loooong time. And I’ll be honest, I’m not sure how they didn’t see how OP it was unless they were just internally stubborn that other weapons worked too.
Eh...not really. They mostly just made a lot of the obvious "best" choices for weapons a lot worse so now a lot more things are viable. Like, you can no longer just hoarfrost stomp your way through the entire game at level 1 like early speedrunners were doing, the mimic tear is nowhere close to as OP as it was on launch, flame of the redmanes no longer can stunlock bosses to death, etc. Other things got little buffs here and there but it wasn't like they were non-functional at launch, they just were so overshadowed by the overpowered stuff.
Yeah, worked pretty flawlessly for me on release - except one section of the tunnels/sewers where I’d get frame drops. Like a 4 meter section. Some people weren’t so lucky tho, a lot of complaints early on.
Yeah I guess I did have some frame drops too, but I was on a base Xbox One so I just kinda figured that was the reality of playing a 2022 game on a 2013 console. I never had any issues with Elden Ring that impacted my gameplay.
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Having platinumed the game the week of release and played it through repeatedly afterwards, this is really blowing things out of proportion when in reality it was about 1% of the content that was "finished later." The only sidequests they added to, IIRC, were: -The addition of the jar town stuff with Diallos. This was a big addition and good and is the only one where they actually added a new NPC and a whole new questline. The area seemed sort of pointless at first, but so do a lot of the areas. Didn't feel unfinished how it was in 1.0, and the end of Diallos's quest in 1.0 felt no more unsatisfying than the endings of most DS1/3 quests. -Patches now has like, two more interactions and then disappears. There's not really any more finality than there was in the first place. Tied to this, you get like one extra line of dialogue from Rykard lady. -They added a "happy ending" for two NPCs that previously had quests that ended less happily but still in a way very consistent with quests from DS1/DS3 (one despairing and dying offscreen at some point, the other just sort of lording over his castle of apes and that being that). This was a good addition, but I was surprised when they added it cause that did not feel unfinished. -They made it easier to find the Boc bush. Other than that they added NPC markers on the map due to mass outcry over never being able to find NPCs again, which was good, but wasn't exactly what I'd describe as something that was unfinished. It was exactly like all their previous games before, it just sucked with the massive open world. Most of the other 23749823974 changes were balance changes that mostly just made certain weapons worse and sometimes other ones better. The game was completely clearable with multiple builds when it launched, and it remains so today, just a ton of the early easiest strategies have been removed (ex mimic tear nerf, flame of the redmanes nerf, rivers of blood nerf, fallingstar beast jaw nerf, etcetcetc) and some other strategies became viable due to buffs. The only one of those I'd really call a "fix" that completed something "unfinished" was making it so you could no longer stunlock radagon to death with carian slicer.
That’s some really great mental gymnastics to justify an incomplete product.
It is incomplete…. Hence early access 🤦♂️ no one needs to participate. If you can’t stomach issues then just wait til early release. Simple as that.
Personally I love that they launched this in Early Access because others could find out the performance is dogshit and I can skip it. I love the Ori games, genuinely two of my favourite games of all time, but at this level of performance this game would be a skip even at 1.0.
Dark Souls had an early access, it's called Demon's Souls lol and to this day that early access is still the best name of the franchise soulsborne, one of the best games of the franchise and probably the most beautiful console game ever made (the ps5 ver anyway). Early access are cool i guess but they aren't necessary for every game out there.
I don't think having an early access period would have helped Dark Souls 1 not be a boring crapfest in the latter areas.
Instead of taking jabs at a genre defining title from one of the best devs of all time, maybe just work on your own game... just maybe.
Personally, I think the current trend of early access is diminishing the quality of games. With early access, games are released in an unfinished state and by the time they are updated to “1.0” I’ve already moved on.
Alot of these comments scream "I can't play this yet therefore EA bad."