The Callisto Protocol [PS, XB, PC]

[Remij]

If gamers stopped pre-ordering games before they were reviewed and known to to good, a lot less poorly-optimised games would be released. You may want to discuss this with the person in your mirror.

You don't think I have?

I never bought Sackboy until it got patched and fixed. I only bought Callisto because I wanted to support this team and their new IP... and knew full well that I could refund it.

I was almost set to refund it.. but then they patched it and promised more optimization in the future.. so I kept it.

There's a lot of games I haven't bought until they've been fixed.. or at all... and I won't support them until they do, it's that simple.

 

[mr magoo]

So I was listening to some podcast last night and conversation was that Sony will pull games like this from the store. Microsoft and steam will continue to sell and deal with refunds. Some people don’t care and will not refund some will. And this is the risk they are willing to take. Now I don’t know if this is true and apply in this situation but one can see the pattern here. Often games are realased in much better shape on ps5 while pc and boxes are being patched afterwards. Perhaps devs having tight time schedule are prioritizing Sony platform because of the fear that Sony will pull game off the store. Pc and boxes are patched after release.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

You don't think I have?

If more gamers did this consistently, publishers would be far less inclined to risk launching a games in this state. Supporting the team for a game you're excited about is understandable, but it's often not the dev but their publisher. You emboldening them to continue this poor approach.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

So I was listening to some podcast last night and conversation was that Sony will pull games like this from the store.

Why would Sony pull this? According to the Digital Foundry video, the PS5 version was solid - so was the Series X version apart from a few bugs.

 

[mr magoo]

Why would Sony pull this? According to the Digital Foundry video, the PS5 version was solid - so was the Series X version apart from a few bugs.

I mean if it was realased in the same state as xsx one. As I said this is not the first time when game is in very good state on Sony platform but xboxes and pc need multiple patches afterwards.

 

[Malo]

I mean if it was realased in the same state as xsx one. As I said this is not the first time when game is in very good state on Sony platform but xboxes and pc need multiple patches afterwards.

What was the issue with the game on XSX? Apart from the RT reflections?

 

[Deleted member 11852]

I mean if it was realased in the same state as xsx one. As I said this is not the first time when game is in very good state on Sony platform but xboxes and pc need multiple patches afterwards.

The only I have had personal experience with was Cyberpunk 2077, but I bought that to play on PS5, only after I saw the PS4 version running on PS5. Have there been other games that ran so poorly on PlayStation or Xbox other than this? People often say The Witcher 3 but I played it at launch on PS4 and it was good apart from a few places (the bog), which they later patched.

Before that you need to wind back a few generations where Skyrim on PS3 stands out although I never had the issues other people had but I was nicking all the cheeses and doing things that caused massive save files. Fallout 3 was a bit rough on consoles too.

 

[mr magoo]

Elden ring was significantly worse on xsx at launch pretty little liar so launched without RT on xsx and this is top of my head. I don’t know if this “the tools” issue or the reason I mentioned before, rushed games and fear that Sony will remove it from store. But listening to latest DF episode makes me think about that, John said that he was surprised that every other version had serious issues. Besides PlayStation one that ran great. Maybe something is here.

 

[Malo]

Besides PlayStation one that ran great. Maybe something is here.

You mean other than the 150 or so people from Sony's Visual Arts Group helping out on the PS5 version of the game?

 

[CD33]

You mean other than the 150 or so people from Sony's Visual Arts Group helping out on the PS5 version of the game?

This has been confirmed foolish.

 

[chris1515]

You mean other than the 150 or so people from Sony's Visual Arts Group helping out on the PS5 version of the game?

This is art team, they helped for all version. They worked on other game like Jedi Fallen Order with an Xbox marketing deal and it changes nothing. And conspiracy theory has nothing to do here. Xbox Series version are functionnal and nothing to do with the shitfest of Cyberpunk 2077 on PS4 when the game release.

 

[Malo]

Xbox Series version are functionnal and nothing to do with the shitfest of Cyberpunk 2077 on PS4 when the game release.

Well that's what I don't get, the Xbox version seemed fine?

 

[chris1515]

Well that's what I don't get, the Xbox version seemed fine?

Imo the problem is easy to understand. The base version was PS5. The publisher wanted the game to release before Christmas and before Dead Space Remake.

A Delayed Game Is Eventually Good, But a Bad Game Is Bad Forever

A Delayed Game Is Eventually Good, a Bad Game Is Bad Forever is a quote commonly attributed to Nintendo video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto. The quote has

knowyourmeme.com

This is not true with patch but from a commercial perspective this is a huge problem.

 

[Malo]

Imo the problem is easy to understand. The base version was PS5. The publisher wanted the game to release before Christmas and before Dead Space Remake.

Got it, makes complete sense now. Thanks.

 

[Remij]

If more gamers did this consistently, publishers would be far less inclined to risk launching a games in this state. Supporting the team for a game you're excited about is understandable, but it's often not the dev but their publisher. You emboldening them to continue this poor approach.

You have no idea how much is pisses me off when bringing up issues on the Steam forums and you get a bunch of a-holes who have nothing better to do than to come in and counter anything you say with "well I have no issues, it's your PC" or "user error"... I really hate that... and I've mentioned it on this forum multiple times where people make excuses for this stuff and will blame themselves or others before admitting there's issues with some of these games.

It's quite infuriating.

I just try to do what I can. I try to bring awareness and I leave negative reviews imploring people to NOT buy these games until they are fixed, if I happen to own such a game. I also speak very loudly when developer DO do the right thing and fix the issues with their games, and commit to making it the best it can possibly be.

I think this problem is becoming prevalent enough now where it's going to become a real PR nightmare for developers who continually release games in this state. Hopefully enough to the point where they become more vigilant in ensuring it doesn't happen again in the future.

Above everything though, I feel there's a real issue with QA on the PC side of things that needs addressing industry-wide. I think these studios/publishers need to take a good look at their QA protocols and make some adjustments to ensure this stuff doesn't happen.

And finally.. even if we're not helping ourselves, and what we do emboldens them to continue their shitty practices... that doesn't make it right for them to continuing to do so and taking advantage of people like us.

 

[Remij]

Ok, so a new patch just dropped... it's ~10GB in size. I tested it out... and it's essentially butter smooth now. MUCH better.

See... if it would have just released like this in the first place... nobody would have said shit, and you'd have the PC version essentially declared the best version...

Time and time again it's proven that all this stuff is avoidable. The engine actually HAS a method to deal with it... developers simply have to put in the effort. That's what it comes down to.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Ok, so a new patch just dropped... I tested it out... and it's essentially butter smooth now. MUCH better.

See... if it would have just released like this in the first place... nobody would have said shit, and you'd have the PC version essentially declared the best version...

Time and time again it's proven that all this stuff is avoidable. The engine actually HAS a method to deal with it... developers simply have to put in the effort. That's what it comes down to.

The interesting thing is, was this the version that was supposed to ship but didn't due to a mistake of patching in an older version of some files rather than the versions meant for release?

For the end user it was a bad launch of the game on PC regardless of whether that was the case or not. But if the developer wasn't lying about the PC version mistakenly shipping with an older version of some files, then at least it might not have been a case of the developer not noticing and not fixing the stutter.

Of course, having an error of that magnitude in the first place isn't acceptable so it's not all roses.

Regards,
SB

 

[Remij]

The interesting thing is, was this the version that was supposed to ship but didn't due to a mistake of patching in an older version of some files rather than the versions meant for release?

For the end user it was a bad launch of the game on PC regardless of whether that was the case or not. But if the developer wasn't lying about the PC version mistakenly shipping with an older version of some files, then at least it might not have been a case of the developer not noticing and not fixing the stutter.

Of course, having an error of that magnitude in the first place isn't acceptable so it's not all roses.

Regards,
SB

While I can't say for sure, I honestly doubt that it was "patching some files".. I sincerely think they spend the past couple of days playing the hell out of the game building up a complete PSO cache.. and then patched it in.

I think they maybe forgot to build a cache for the game fullstop for the shipping build. Because the way the game launched, it was simply unacceptable. Literally every scene every new thing was stutter. Like there was no cache at all.

If they had those files already and simply forgot to integrate them, I think the turn-aournd would have been complete the first patch. Instead the first patch fixed SOME of the stutters.. but didn't have nearly enough coverage. So that's why I think they went through and built a new fresh cache.

Anyways.... this is how it should have been...

That is with a completely deleted shader cache.

It's now rock solid.

 

[Remij]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1600300228405755904

They tweeted about the patch. It's been excellent for me so far. And they say they're continuing to work on optimizations.

I give them credit for keeping in contact with the players and being very determined to right the wrong.

Glad I didn't refund and gave them a chance. Still, the way it released was unacceptable. Hopefully they learned a hard lesson here.

 

[Remij]

Before:

After: