I’ve been waiting for a game like this since around 2004, when I used to play a mafia game that was kinda similar...turn-based, accrue power, character trait development, character gear, etc. So, I air my grievances with a grain of salt knowing this is the kind of mafia game I have been waiting 16+ years for.
The crashes are extremely frustrating, especially when it crashes after EVERY. BOSS. KILL. I just killed my 5th competitor and the game has crashed every single time I killed the enemy boss. Like, I killed them and, in that instant it goes to the transition screen, the screen locks and the game crashes. The game crashes so hard that it locks the screen and holding the PS button down on the controller doesn’t even bring up the console menu.
Needless to say, I am in the habit of savings my progress frequently (especially just before a fight), but that precaution is useless when I have to fight every boss twice due to the game crashing. This has happened to me after each fight that took 30+ minutes of strategy and slow-ass combat turns. If this is what happens to me on a console, fee of viruses or hardware conflicts (allegedly) then I know it is the programming and not some issue with my equipment.
The question I have is - Do you guys actually test the game all the way through before releasing it or do you just let the gamer base be the bug testers? Leaning toward the latter given my experiences because there is no way this happens five times in a row on a console without developers/testers experiencing it, too. So, why not save gamer frustration and fix those issues prior to launch? What would that have taken...a week to find and fix, if that?
Also, the Lorenzo mission goes nowhere. I have selected both options available to my boss and nothing happens...dead end quest. Why? Why wouldn’t this have been discovered prior to launch since it is one of the first quests?
I am sure these issues will be fixed in time as the bug reports flow in. Regardless, everything I (and others) have found in the two days since is indicative your development/testing team was MIA prior to launch. Please learn from this. You’ve developed a decent game, but these crashes will sink player interest. For instance, I couldn’t get passed bugs in the recently released Wasteland game and I stopped playing it all together after an hour. Haven’t touched it since, which kinda breaks my heart because I looooove the Wasteland series. Such a waste, especially when expectations are so high from a hungry base of players stuck at home during a pandemic.
So, you have to ask yourself which is more important - Release the game n your originally announced release date with all the bugs while annoying your customers (and adding more work for your bug fixers after the game is released) or do an extra month of THOROUGH testing and fix the bugs/crashes prior to launch, thus wowing your customer base and making a big impact on the gaming world? (That’s called profit, something every company should concern itself with if they want to stay in business.)
Also... Moving the toons around the map is a bit clunky and they get stuck on objects. Nothing tells you that you must be zoomed out on the larger map to use a taxi. Do you have any idea how long people have stood around trying to hail a taxi in the zoomed-in map??? Dialoguing with henchmen is not intuitive. You MUST add a feature allowing combat speed to be adjusted. It’s turn based; there is no reason the current speed setting couldn’t benefit from a fast and very fast mode. Give players a manual way to cause the game so that the date at the top turns red or something so they know the game clock is not moving forward. Work on the timing of “random acts”...had to start a save over because every time I launched that save it would instantly put me in a fight with an enemy. How is an act of violence “random” in time if I literally just started a war with someone 2 seconds prior? Oh, and why doesn’t a 5th group member do anything during a fight but are still in the building? Don’t you think it would uave been nice to i form us that a max of four toons can comprise a group during fights?
Lots of positives in the game, but I wanted to focus on the negatives to shed some light on certain aspects that will keep this game from being a repeat-play game.
TL;DR - Decent game overall but PLEASE find and fix the major bugs before launch in the future!
The crashes are extremely frustrating, especially when it crashes after EVERY. BOSS. KILL. I just killed my 5th competitor and the game has crashed every single time I killed the enemy boss. Like, I killed them and, in that instant it goes to the transition screen, the screen locks and the game crashes. The game crashes so hard that it locks the screen and holding the PS button down on the controller doesn’t even bring up the console menu.
Needless to say, I am in the habit of savings my progress frequently (especially just before a fight), but that precaution is useless when I have to fight every boss twice due to the game crashing. This has happened to me after each fight that took 30+ minutes of strategy and slow-ass combat turns. If this is what happens to me on a console, fee of viruses or hardware conflicts (allegedly) then I know it is the programming and not some issue with my equipment.
The question I have is - Do you guys actually test the game all the way through before releasing it or do you just let the gamer base be the bug testers? Leaning toward the latter given my experiences because there is no way this happens five times in a row on a console without developers/testers experiencing it, too. So, why not save gamer frustration and fix those issues prior to launch? What would that have taken...a week to find and fix, if that?
Also, the Lorenzo mission goes nowhere. I have selected both options available to my boss and nothing happens...dead end quest. Why? Why wouldn’t this have been discovered prior to launch since it is one of the first quests?
I am sure these issues will be fixed in time as the bug reports flow in. Regardless, everything I (and others) have found in the two days since is indicative your development/testing team was MIA prior to launch. Please learn from this. You’ve developed a decent game, but these crashes will sink player interest. For instance, I couldn’t get passed bugs in the recently released Wasteland game and I stopped playing it all together after an hour. Haven’t touched it since, which kinda breaks my heart because I looooove the Wasteland series. Such a waste, especially when expectations are so high from a hungry base of players stuck at home during a pandemic.
So, you have to ask yourself which is more important - Release the game n your originally announced release date with all the bugs while annoying your customers (and adding more work for your bug fixers after the game is released) or do an extra month of THOROUGH testing and fix the bugs/crashes prior to launch, thus wowing your customer base and making a big impact on the gaming world? (That’s called profit, something every company should concern itself with if they want to stay in business.)
Also... Moving the toons around the map is a bit clunky and they get stuck on objects. Nothing tells you that you must be zoomed out on the larger map to use a taxi. Do you have any idea how long people have stood around trying to hail a taxi in the zoomed-in map??? Dialoguing with henchmen is not intuitive. You MUST add a feature allowing combat speed to be adjusted. It’s turn based; there is no reason the current speed setting couldn’t benefit from a fast and very fast mode. Give players a manual way to cause the game so that the date at the top turns red or something so they know the game clock is not moving forward. Work on the timing of “random acts”...had to start a save over because every time I launched that save it would instantly put me in a fight with an enemy. How is an act of violence “random” in time if I literally just started a war with someone 2 seconds prior? Oh, and why doesn’t a 5th group member do anything during a fight but are still in the building? Don’t you think it would uave been nice to i form us that a max of four toons can comprise a group during fights?
Lots of positives in the game, but I wanted to focus on the negatives to shed some light on certain aspects that will keep this game from being a repeat-play game.
TL;DR - Decent game overall but PLEASE find and fix the major bugs before launch in the future!
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