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[Dragnet]

Agreed, I couldn't think of a single person to highlight such as you - but the silence by the normal outlets on the issues Firewatch is having seemed to be extremely odd for them, till I thought about the team behind the project.

I'd agree that these issues are not gamebreaking the same way like SimCity's launch was, or the Arkham Knight issues on PC, but they still seem significant enough to warrant mentioning. The fact that they haven't been, either in reviews, or in a follow up post - is really not sitting well with me.

I get the vibe that so much of the press loved the games concept, art and team so much that despite the performance they couldn't say anything. Mad bias towards looking at the project as a friend or fan (or something) rather than as a professional. Not the biggest problem in the world, it all got stated clearly in reviews which I suppose is all that matters in the end for the average consumer.

Still, phenomenal game. Literally everything except the performance is really, really, really good. So chuffed to see Olly Moss move into the development side of games and knock it out of the park too!

 

[boredJonathan]

I get the vibe that so much of the press loved the games concept, art and team so much that despite the performance they couldn't say anything. Mad bias towards looking at the project as a friend or fan (or something) rather than as a professional.

Which is a shame, because I too loved the game's concept, art and team - but these technical issues are keeping me from playing it.

I don't want to go full conspiracy theory here, or even start really throwing around the term bias - as plenty of people in this thread of said, they noticed the issues but it didn't significantly impact their enjoyment of the game. I'm just really surprised that none of the big outlets mentioned these issues.

 

[kriskrosbbk]

Played through the entire game last night on PS4. I loved the game, but couldn't help but feel like I didn't have the best experience with it because the stuttering is constant. It's bad. It doesn't "ruin" the game, but I know that I didn't have the best experience. And the game is so good, I WANT to have the best experience with it.

Yeah same here.I am on day2 and just quit it for good.Will wait for patch.

 

[Dragnet]

As plenty of people in this thread of said, they noticed the issues but it didn't significantly impact their enjoyment of the game.

I think the performance is extra jarring come so fresh off of The Witness, another indie, small team, exploration based game with a somewhat similar art style. I wonder if the performance issues would be as big a deal if The Witness didn't run so flawlessly?

The game is just so good you don't WANT to the experience to be brought down like it is, it deserves better.

 

[boredJonathan]

I think the performance is extra jarring come so fresh off of The Witness, another indie, small team, exploration based game with a somewhat similar art style. I wonder if the performance issues would be as big a deal if The Witness didn't run so flawlessly?

The game is just so good you don't WANT to the experience to be brought down like it is, it deserves better.

I definitely think that coming off the Witness is part of the problem. I was (finally) getting around to playing the Witcher 3 before the Witness came out, and I took a break from the Witcher to play through the Witness. When I finished the Witness and went back to Witcher 3, I definitely felt like I noticed the frame rate issues in that game more (but again, not to the point of being detrimental to the experience).

Then from that to Firewatch and it was just.. ugh. I broke me out of the experience so much I couldn't keep going. I think if the Witness wasn't so fresh in my mind I might have given it more of a pass, but as it is - I just can't get pulled into the narrative with these issues. Maybe when I finally do wrap up Witcher 3 and come back to Firewatch, it'll hopefully have been patched, and the framerate issues won't be so drastic to me.

 

[Exile20]

yep the issues are there but not game breaking for me tbh

Are we at this point where we accept games only if they are not broken?

Quality doesn't matter anymore?

 

[80s Bad Guy]

Saw this on the GB forums, so thought I'd share. take it with a grain of salt though:

Hi guys, I'm one of the devs and Campo Santo and I love the write-up. - We're aware of the PS4 performance issues and are working with Sony and Unity to address them; one thing you can do until some of these patches hit would be to disable auto-save in the pause menu. This won't fix everything but it will remove one of the most frequent sources of hitches. We'll announce more soon.

 

[IceDoesntHelp]

It really isnt that bad. but maybe i don't care nearly as much as all of you.

 

[Dragnet]

It really isnt that bad. but maybe i don't care nearly as much as all of you.

Would you be happy to watch a movie that freezes and judders constantly?

 

[bubaglobalj]

Are we at this point where we accept games only if they are not broken?

Quality doesn't matter anymore?

I'm playing on the PS4 and I'm loving the game so far. I think people on here are totally overreacting. Yeah sometimes it is laggy, so what? It just doesn't bother me.

 

[Nardonicus]

It really isnt that bad. but maybe i don't care nearly as much as all of you.

Same for me. It is noticeable at times but it really doesn't bother me. The game is awesome.

Actually, the weird horizontal stick acceleration bothers me a lot more, but that is a minor issue.

Neither issues affect my enjoyment of the game at all though. I love it.

 

[adamantypants]

Agreed, I couldn't think of a single person to highlight such as you - but the silence by the normal outlets on the issues Firewatch is having seemed to be extremely odd for them, till I thought about the team behind the project.

I'd agree that these issues are not gamebreaking the same way like SimCity's launch was, or the Arkham Knight issues on PC, but they still seem significant enough to warrant mentioning. The fact that they haven't been, either in reviews, or in a follow up post - is really not sitting well with me.

Reviewers sometimes don't like to include performance issues on consoles in their reviews as devs will often release day 1 patches to correct major issues. Debug code is often the same as review code for games and it's not necessarily representative of the final game.

 

[BKJest]

It really isnt that bad. but maybe i don't care nearly as much as all of you.

It is really really bad but since it's not an action game it's playable.

 

[Auctopus]

Holy shit. Hard crash on Day 77, tried to quit application and my screen got fucked up. I can't even turn off the console with the power button.

I'm gonna go for a refund in the morning.

 

[The Stranger]

I had some bearable but very noticeable lag issues on my playthrough, and one crash toward the middle of the game.

My issue was the crazy amount of texturing issues present from the start of the game and seemingly getting worse the further I got in. Grass and hills would stretch across areas they really shouldn't and areas in the cave confused me a lot because the path I needed to take was covered by a texture that I took for a wall/dead end. Ended up just being able to walk through it.

 

[VinFTW]

So, has the dev even acknowledged any issues? Is a fix in the works?

 

[Frankiebass]

I've noticed some really band color banding with this game. Is it the game, PS4, or HDMI input?

My xbone seems to handle banding better, so maybe its a game by game basis

 

[Sporran]

Are we at this point where we accept games only if they are not broken?

Quality doesn't matter anymore?

as i said its not game breaking for me.

 

[shinobi602]

Finally completed it, only had one time where it got stuck on the loading screen but exited to dashboard and jumped back in.

I encountered stuttering and some frame drops but they didn't detract me from the overall experience. Fantastic game. The relationship development between Delilah and Henry was so damn good.

 

[finalflame]

So, has the dev even acknowledged any issues? Is a fix in the works?

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2016-02-10-firewatch-dev-assures-a-ps4-framerate-fix-is-on-the-way

 

[IzzyF3]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2016-02-10-firewatch-dev-assures-a-ps4-framerate-fix-is-on-the-way

Patch shouldn't be too far off then. Will probably buy it now, download, and wait for patch.

 

[Sky Saw]

Patch shouldn't be too far off then. Will probably buy it now, download, and wait for patch.

Why not wait to see if the patch actually works first?

 

[robot]

Yea I was in the mindset of buying now while it's on sale then waiting for the patch, but seems like missing out on the savings instead of potentially wasting $18 would be a wiser choice. I really have no desire to play it with these known issues. Will wait and see how this pans out.

 

[crimilde]

I want to play this so much but I'm afraid that if I get a game breaking bug that loses my progress, I won't jump back in and I don't want that.
I was about to buy it then I saw this thread and decided to wait until the issues are fixed.

 

[uncblue]

Holy shit. Hard crash on Day 77, tried to quit application and my screen got fucked up. I can't even turn off the console with the power button.

I'm gonna go for a refund in the morning.

Welcome to the club buddy. I wonder how many people have to experience this bug before the developers take notice.

 

[uomoartificiale]

Great game so far, but it crashed on me to the dashboard three times on ps4. Horrible performance. Technically this game is a total mess.

 

[Riddler]

Finished today and no crashes(whew) with some minor slow downs and 2 times where the land was loading when going from crosswind to the supply drop part of the map. Other than that a great experience.

Although I will wait for patch for my 2nd play through.

 

[The Ummah]

Fired this up because I couldn't take it anymore. Since release, I've booted to the main screen and chose not to start because of the experiences in this thread.

Just got towards

Spoiler

the end of day 1, right by the cave

and it completely locked up. I had to unplug my PS4. Really hesitant to start again so soon.

 

[LoveCake]

Fired this up because I couldn't take it anymore. Since release, I've booted to the main screen and chose not to start because of the experiences in this thread.

Just got towards

Spoiler

the end of day 1, right by the cave

and it completely locked up. I had to unplug my PS4. Really hesitant to start again so soon.

I have not even booted the game up on my PS4 yet & I'm not going to until the patch is released.

There is an unfortunate lesson here it seems

I was really looking forward to playing this as well, it will just have to go to the back of my back-log queue.

 

[hydruxo]

I pickd it up last night. It's definitely hitchier than we are used to playing. Reminds me of games on 360/PS3 and that's super disappointing, but for me at least, it's not a deal breaker where I can't play the game or consider it broken. The bigger issue isn't just the frame rate gripe, but the fact that sometimes it feels like it makes the game have a bit of input lag. Shame because the art style is pretty damn good and the hitching doesn't let you appreciate it the way it deserves sometimes.

Yeah that's a deal breaker for me then. One of the biggest reasons I was interested in this game was for the art, but I'm not trying to struggle through all the issues right now. I'll wait until they patch it.

 

[KyanMehwulfe]

Frame rate is pretty spotty but it didn't really hurt the game at all. No favours from it either; it'd probably be even better at 60fps (maybe I would have take my time and done more exploration). But for the core 3-4 hour story, it was serviceable.

Game did freeze once though at a 'new Day' loading screen.

 

[IzzyF3]

Why not wait to see if the patch actually works first?

I think there's like a PS+ sale right now or something. I didn't check.

 

[SolidusDave]

Yeah I also bought it due to the day1 PS+ offers, I love those. (also usually means it takes a while till a game shows up on PS+ if at all).

Performance doesn't hinder my enjoyment so far (didn't care about it in F4 either, especially post patch), but it's definitely not as smooth as The Witness which I played before. Though I must admit that I'm not very sensitive to low framerates (maybe also because I mostly play in a dark room?), however as here we're talking about relative drastic changes in framerate it's also noticeable to me.

The freezes/stutter during saving are too common in games so that I kinda ignore them considering they are not very frequent. Won't disable auto-saving because I will likely forget to save manually.
The game already crashed on me during the first ingame day, so I'm way more worried about something like that. There's also only one save in case there's a gamebreaking bug.. (though I copied it at least which kinda does the same thing).

But I think my biggest complain would be the controls with the weird stick acceleration etc. I get that the game should allow for faster movement than The Witness but selecting stuff especially during zoom is very janky.

Still, I can't wait for a patch as I really want to finish the game. A pity because I usually won't replay such story driven games so I might not benefit from the patch even if it hits and fixes everything as soon as next week (doubtful). I don't get why they couldn't just wait another week or so with the release then, not like they have an expensive marketing campaign synched up.
The game actually comes already pre-patched (1.01 , said to improve performance) but I guess that wasn't enough.


From recent games, SOMA's performance (not Unity though, right?) was way worse for me in some levels and they still hadn't had that fixed 4 months later...
There I experienced slowdowns that I would consider actually unplayable (was during an enemy encounter to make it worse), but I don't remember a GAF backlash for that. I guess because in general the framerate was more stable which is seemingly what most people here are looking for.

 

[10k]

Yeah in the PS I love you podcast this week they mentioned the performance problems on PS4. PC is the way to go for this game so far.

 

[kyser73]

Finally completed it, only had one time where it got stuck on the loading screen but exited to dashboard and jumped back in.

I encountered stuttering and some frame drops but they didn't detract me from the overall experience. Fantastic game. The relationship development between Delilah and Henry was so damn good.

Is the stuttering/frame pacing similar to EGttR?

I'm using that as a baseline on when I pick Firewatch up.

 

[IceDoesntHelp]

Would you be happy to watch a movie that freezes and judders constantly?

I had one freeze while I played and finished the game.
The "judders" aren't constant enough for me to care.
I beat the game with the one freeze, and that was my only real issue.

Loved the game too, fun ride.

 

[blame space]

IceDoesntHelp how does it feel to know you liked and finished a BROKEN MESS OF A GAME?

what is it like to be a survivor

 

[Johndoey]

Yeah I like the game, but I definitely can't recommended it as is just constant hitching is maddening.

 

[ramyeon]

I normally don't get bothered by frame drops much but it bugs me to no end in this game. Very disappointing.

 

[Jacksinthe]

Are we at this point where we accept games only if they are not broken?

Quality doesn't matter anymore?

Bethesda is still around.

I'm assuming that point came and went a looooooong time ago.

 

[Juice]

I feel like something is wrong with me because I'm playing on PS4 and I can't detect what's wrong with the technical performance of the game.

#blessed

 

[Fachasaurus]

Will play Unravel first. Hoping the patch is out by the time I am done with that one!

 

[Jacksinthe]

Not sure how they are going to fix this. This is an issue as other have stated with how garbage collection works in Unity and this is an issue with EVERY Unity game. You either have to design your content around the failures/limitations of the engine or spend major time refactoring how garbage collection works or just accept it.

This isn't an overnight fix and could potentially take weeks to really 'solve', if they can.

Since you bolded and cap'd the word I'm going after I'll just use this as a bouncing platform:

Stop talking out of your ass.

No, no. Seriously. Pull your head out and breathe.

I don't think you know a damn thing about the engine or what its capable of, even from my previous posts. You are clearly cherry picking a few phrases to make your case.

That's not how this works. That's not how any of this works.

Yes, Unity isn't perfect. But here's news: neither is UE4. Neither is Cryengine.

Why do you see more games with sub-par performance using Unity? Because its the most popular FREE engine right now. Everyone is using it. Its easy to pick up, learn, powerful enough to do some trick work and priced right.

Stop with your bullshit. "Every" Unity game having these issues is extreme hyperbole. Chances are you've played a TON of games with Unity that don't have issues and had no clue because you're allowed to strip the splash with paid Unity.

Plenty, nay, an overabundance of Unity games are fine. You see a lot of crap because Unity is used a LOT, so there will be more crap by sheer number rolls.

You don't have to like Unity but this constant parroting and regurgitation of bullshit is out of hand. I know where it started, I know who GAF latched on to and you are allowed to have preference, that's all good - you're just not allowed to latch on to BS and repeat like a fucking canary unless you KNOW what you're talking about - which you don't.

Plenty of games use Unity just fine even for large projects. Here is an example of what the engine wasn't designed to do, being shoehorned to do it with middleware. The same shit can happen (and has) with other engines.

Less parroting, more learning.

 

[IceDoesntHelp]

IceDoesntHelp how does it feel to know you liked and finished a BROKEN MESS OF A GAME?

what is it like to be a survivor

I couldn't have done it without your support.

 

[bomma_man]

Man it's pretty bad. Feels like you're playing online with a crap connection.

 

[NotTheGuyYouKill]

What's the timeline on a patch

 

[cackhyena]

What's the timeline on a patch

Yeah, I really wanna go through this over the weekend.

 

[border]

Stop with your bullshit. "Every" Unity game having these issues is extreme hyperbole. Chances are you've played a TON of games with Unity that don't have issues and had no clue because you're allowed to strip the splash with paid Unity.

I'm pretty sure he means that every UNITY game has the same garbage collection issue, not that every game has the same performance issue.

Some games presumably have enough built-in performance overhead that the spikes in CPU utilization don't show up as dropped frames, stutters, or hitches. Or they simply don't generate as much garbage because they have a more linear design.

 

[Jacksinthe]

I'm pretty sure he means that every UNITY game has the same garbage collection issue, not that every game has the same performance issue.

Some games presumably have enough built-in performance overhead that the spikes in CPU utilization don't show up as dropped frames, stutters, or hitches. Or they simply don't generate as much garbage because they have a more linear design.

Skipping over everything I've said in this thread, sure.

Garbage collection is an issue in ANY engine. What is dangerous about Unity is that the process is automatic. Anytime you put something on cruise control it scurries into the back of the mind of the dev and if you're not careful, will bite you in the ass down the line. Forgetting it exists and trying to brute force your way through everything will yield bad results.

Saying every Unity game suffers because of this is beyond stupidity. Its clear that what the devs set out to do isn't in Unity's default toolkit, at a quick glance. Or if it is, was poorly optimized. Not every engine is good at everything but blanket statements saying every game has this issue is flat out deceit, ignorant and does nothing but further stupefy everyone who reads it and winds up parroting it later.

If you have games that run fine (and many of them), then its not a widespread issue for those games, is it?

 

[sujay]

some news about the upcoming patch and some insight into the performance stuff

https://twitter.com/thatJaneNg/status/698228565490315264

I think people will be much happier with how Firewatch PS4 is going to look with the upcoming patch. It looks much better. still in test

https://twitter.com/thatJaneNg/status/698232666387312640

with some unity updates, we can now push shadow distance + draw distance a bunch, which is more like PC on high config

https://twitter.com/thatJaneNg/status/698232908016979970

[re:multithreading in unity updates] they are backporting some into the 5.2.4, but next patch will be 5.4 which yes is apparently the one with "all the ps4 fixes" :\

https://twitter.com/thatJaneNg/status/698236989246742528

this uses a new Unity update which lessens the pressure on core0 thread which affects many things.

https://twitter.com/thatJaneNg/status/698263689288241153

also disabling autosave helps too, a lot of the hitching comes from us setting too many auto saves I think

https://twitter.com/thatJaneNg/status/698233925047619584

hopefully next week. we don't get to release it, patches are vetted and certified through Sony first, so not instant