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Good news - we've just completed work on our second major patch (Patch 1.03 on PC & Mac, Title Update 1.02 on PS3 and X360). At almost 200 fixes, this one is roughly twice as large as our previous and should address the bulk of the major issues that are still being reported.
As always, the certification process takes time and we can't promise specific release dates until we receive the final word from Microsoft, Sony, and the EA Cert team. Release dates will vary by platform and we'll work with our various partners to make them available on a case by case basis as soon as they're ready.
We'll talk a little more next week about what's included in those almost 200 fixes. I'll continue to keep this post/thread updated with the latest info.
Thanks for playing Dragon Age II,
Rob
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UPDATE: Thursday, May 26, 2011
Hi everyone,
I promised you more detail about this patch and I apologize that it's taken me until Thursday to deliver on that. First off, a quick note about expected timelines - I've confirmed that the patch will not be out in time for this weekend. That said, PC, X360, and possibly PS3 Europe are all trending well for sometime next week. PS3 North America remains uncertain at this point and we've confirmed with TransGaming that, due to some work they still need to complete on the launcher, the Mac version remains highly unlikely for next week.
At any rate, there's lots of good stuff coming with this patch - almost 200 fixes, as I mentioned last week and our patch notes will attempt to do a better job of calling those out than we were able to on Patch 1. There's never a 1:1 correlation between bugs logged and fixed within our internal tracking system and the individual entries that get called out in the patch notes, just because patch notes are really all about describing the symptoms whereas bugs sometimes focus on causes. But we've made an effort to call out the symptomatic changes you can expect to see in a little greater detail.
So what are some of the hot button, big ticket items that we've addressed in the upcoming patch? We'll release the proper patch notes soon but, in the meantime, here's an overview of the big picture:
- Failure to Launch - Some PC users were still encountering some strange edge cases that were fundamentally preventing them from being able to launch the game. Some Windows administrator accounts were receiving errors about insufficient priveleges - it turns out that was due to a corrupted file in the Windows OS so we changed our code to fail more gracefully when it encounters that problem, allowing the game to continue. This same issue was also causing an error regarding an AWC.dll file and that has also been fixed. A variety of other launch issues were also fixed. Importantly, a lot of these fixes have made their way back into some of our central EA technology, ensuring that these edge cases are addressed across a wide range of recent and upcoming EA titles.
- DirectX 11 - Outside of the patch, AMD and nVidia have both released new drivers that greatly improve the speed and stability of the game on various cards and configurations. If you don't have the latest, definitely get them. On our side, we've added some additional checking and error messaging to our options page, preventing users from selecting certain settings if they don't have the drivers they need. Also, we had a wierd case where the full-screen gamma settings weren't saving properly and were interfering with your choice of DirectX 9 vs DirectX 11 renderer, resulting in a lot of confusion around precisely which renderer was in use.
- Crashes - Did you know that when you play logged in on some platforms, if you crash, you're presented with an option to send us an error report? Thanks to all of you who've done so, we've been able to track down and resolve a variety of crashes. We found one that was tied to the animation of the shimmer effect you see on corpse loot, for example, and another that was tied to how arrays were sometimes used and cleared in scripting (this particular one was most evident in some combat that would occur in the Lowtown Night area). So thanks to all of you who sent in those automated error reports - it really does make a difference!
- Achievements - The Epic, Supplier, and Archeologist achievements were all experiencing some logic errors and not unlocking reliably in all cases. We dug in, figured out what the problems were, and fixed them one by one.
- Character Corruption, Slow-Mo Hawke, etc. - Not only did we find and correct a lot of these issues at the source (some of which was already tackled in the previous patch) but we also went in and added some code to the "Load Game" process to ensure a retro-active fix for everyone and to catch any other rare cases that might have slipped through.
- Broken Plots - We made a bunch of fixes to plots like "Who Needs Rescuing," "Friendly Concern," "Act of Mercy," "A Murder of Crows," "A New Path," "Bait and Switch," "Demands of the Qun," "Dissent," "No Rest for the Wicked," "The Captain's Condolences," "The Last Straw," "Wayward Son," and more. We've also tweaked some banter, how some Rivalry/Friendship points are assigned, and corrected a lot of the references to events imported from your Dragon Age: Origins playthrough.
- Traps - Trap behavior no longer gets out of synch with the visual effect and we also decided they shouldn't cause injuries (a neat idea in theory but it wasn't fun in practice and was never properly communicated within the game).
- Items - We had some items that were supposed to be class-specific and weren't, we had some where the damage type didn't match their elemental bonuses, and we had some where the item properties interacted with certain abilities in uncool ways. The Maker's Sigh potion was causing a variety of issues and exploits (if you gave it to an archer, it would alter your inventory capacity... Huh?). Item use within the tactics menu was also improved. All of this should now be much happier.
- Runes - When a party member changed their armor, the runes would often vaporise never to be seen again. We fixed that little five-finger discount and made Varric go stand in the corner until he's willing to apologise for what he's done.
- DLC - We made sure that your storage chest carries over properly to the Hawke estate after you complete the main campaign and also got rid of some edge cases where it would have items in it but not open until you left the area and returned. Even better, your Mabari Hound from the Black Emporium content now follows you more reliably and has a new interaction with Fenris during your fourth year in Kirkwall. We also fixed a timeout that was occurring when players with a large number of promotional items would attempt to log in.
- Audio Balance - We weren't happy with how loud combat audio was in comparison to exploration and dialog so our audio team did some fine-tuning on that.
- Gameplay Options - We now offer PC users two new settings in the Gameplay Options menu. One allows you to enable persistent highlighting on useable objects, similar to holding down the Tab key, while the other allows users experiencing performance issues to select a faster but less accurate mouse targeting method.
There's obviously lots more in there as well. I've asked Mike Laidlaw to write up an article covering another section of the patch notes that I haven't even touched on yet and I'll post that as soon as it's ready - hopefully sometime tomorrow so you have lots of info going into the weekend. In the meantime, hang tight and we'll get this patch out to you across the various platforms as soon as we can.
Thanks!
Rob
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UPDATE: Friday, May 27, 2011
Alright, another update. Mike got swept up with some other duties so instead you get me.
As I hinted at in yesterday's post, there's a whole other portion of the upcoming patch I haven't even touched on yet. Based on your feedback and that of a crack squad of our inhouse QA and design specialists, we decided to pursue a major combat balance pass as a part of this patch. A handful of these are outright bug fixes but the bulk are actually subtle enhancements that really improve the feel and flow of combat and character progression, making your tactical/strategic decisions more important and your characters more responsive.
No doubt some aspects of this balance pass will prove controversial but the feedback we received from our in-house and external testers has been extremely positive. The game feels more tense, engaging, and fun as a result of these changes going in. Once again, the patch notes will cover this in greater detail but here's a summary of what you can expect:
- General Improvements - We've slowed the initial pace of enemies at the start of combat, allowing tactical positioning to play a more useful and important role. They also generally gain more health as the game progresses, they're less likely to explode into puddles of blood and gore all the time and their basic attacks are less likely to cause interruptions. Likewise, party members now resume their previous actions once interrupted so you don't have to micromanage them as much and ask them to swig that potion more than once. That said, silence effects and disruptions to stealth have been beefed up a little, making those rarer sorts of interruptions play a more critical role. Enemy commanders are also a little smarter, throwing stun grenades while encouraging their troops to concentrate on a single target. And elemental resistances actually cap out at 95% now, meaning no one can be fully immune to a given damage type.
- Warriors - Overall, warriors were a little more powerful than we wanted them to be, making combat a bit of a cakewalk for these players. The bulk of this had to do with how frequently various abilities were applying the Stagger effect so a lot of our efforts were focused on scaling that frequency back a little (we also reduced other classes' ability to take advantage of the Stagger effect as well). The costs and effectiveness of a few abilities were also tweaked and we increased the effectiveness of some of the threat generation abilities. The effectiveness of abilities like Berzerk were also made more effective.
- Rogues - Rogues, on the other hand, were still a little weaker than we wanted. They'll now regenerate stamina more quickly while performing basic attacks, we've increased the damage of some abilities, and we've made it easier for them to disorient their opponents and reduce their threat levels. We did lengthen some of the cooldowns, however.
- Mages - Mages were a bit of a mixed bag and it was very easy for them to unintentionally evolve into glass cannons - powerful but finicky and fragile. Part of this was due to disparity between their different ability chains and upgrade paths, for instance, with some being obviously underpowered and others over-powered. We wanted to make them a little more forgiving and easier to play while also achieving a more even balance between the different upgrade paths. We juggled the damage and duration of a bunch of offensive abilities up and down to achieve that balance while also making their defensive abilities a little more powerful.
Finally, some updates of what to expect next week. Thanks to the Sony Europe team pushing really hard on the patch, it looks like they'll actually be the first across the finish line. They expect the patch to launch sometime on Monday, May 30th. Microsoft has also been hard at work, and they are expecting the X360 Title Update to launch on Tuesday, May 31.
PC, Mac, and Sony North America remain unconfirmed at this time but we'll keep you posted as we learn more.
Thanks again, everyone, and enjoy your weekend!
Rob
Modifié par Rob Bartel, 27 mai 2011 - 10:58 .
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