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[MiyazakiHatesKojima]

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2019-06-24-bungie-delays-destiny-2-patch-to-avoid-crunch

Bungie is delaying a patch for an overpowered weapon in Destiny 2 to preserve the "work-life balance" of its team.

Among the purposes of the upcoming patch was a fix for an in-game weapon that the game's community was eager to see fixed. Speaking on the GuardianCon 2019 charity livestream, Bungie creative director explained that the patch could not arrive any faster without the necessity of crunch.

"We could take the patch off the... off the 'patch factory', more or less, and ask people to work super long [hours] and add this thing in," he said. "We're having the conversation about, is it worth doing that? Or is it worth preserving work-life balance and ship it later, in July?

"That's the 100%, god's honest truth. It's always a cost-benefit analysis for people who are working super hard."

 

[Virex]

So "avoid crunch" is the new the scapegoat term for game developers?

 

[DeeDogg_]

So "avoid crunch" is the new the scapegoat term for game developers?

the worst baits get us the most

 

[Sorne]

It's fine that've decided to delay because of that reason, but stfu about it and don't go and yell publicly about it like you're some sort of saint for making that decision.

 

[Dibils2k]

yeah this is the new "we dont have loot boxes!"

 

[tkscz]

While it's a good thing that studios are avoiding crunch, it feels like virtue signaling when you feel the need to announce it.

Just say it's delayed, if asked why, then say to avoid crunch.

 

[Virex]

the worst baits get us the most

I wanted to give you a full and detailed reply. But I want to avoid crunch. So this is all you get for now.

 

[Geki-D]

Damn these devs, so whilst they lounge about twiddling their thumbs we have to endure the pain of an OP weapon? Have they no humanity? No scruples about making us suffer so? Are their hearts filled only with evil? Do they take joy in our agony? Let us join hands and shout out "Never this again!" We need a petition started to let the lazy devs know we will not stand for their twisted, sadomasicism!!

Spoiler

/s

 

[Ar¢tos]

You know Bungie is now made of talentless devs (in comparison to Halo times) when a patch to simply balance a weapon now takes ages and requires crunch time.

 

[Clarissa]

Damn these devs, so whilst they lounge about twiddling their thumbs we have to endure the pain of an OP weapon? Have they no humanity? No scruples about making us suffer so? Are their hearts filled only with evil? Do they take joy in our agony? Let us join hands and shout out "Never this again!" We need a petition started to let the lazy devs know we will not stand for their twisted, sadomasicism!!

Spoiler

/s

Lazy Dev Rhetoric. User Banned for 3 days.
And an additional 3 days due to the /s

 

[MDSLKTR]

The real reason is that it would cut in their masturbatory vidocs time.

 

[Arun1910]

Is Destiny 2 good now? (honest question, at launch I felt like they went back to Vanilla Destiny 1 instead of where The Taken King took it)

 

[AlteredForms]

Jim Sterling would be proud.

 

[Tupinambis_WOT]

Probably one of the perks of walking away from Activision.

 

[Ar¢tos]

Is Destiny 2 good now? (honest question, at launch I felt like they went back to Vanilla Destiny 1 instead of where The Taken King took it)

It had worse days... It also had better days. I say it's "meh" now.
Exotics keep being nerfed to force players to play the exact way they want, only with weapons they want.
I got tired of being a puppet on strings with no choices and eventually gave up after Season of the Drifter.

 

[Elcid]

Slackers.

 

[Lanrutcon]

If that's true, good for them. I doubt it's true though.

Them broadcasting it like this smells of something.

 

[Cunth]

'how can we delay the patch and look like good guys too...EUREKA'

 

[Aintitcool]

It's not crunch, It's surprise work hours ?

 

[Spukc]

This is a good thing people.
Stop being shit heads

 

[diablos991]

The emerging excuse strikes again. This will be standard going forward as developers spin delays to play as positive PR.

A little overtime isn’t the worst thing in the world. Not sure why this generation hates it so much.

Perhaps these companies shouldn’t commit to schedules they are not staffed to meet.

 

[NickFire]

The emerging excuse strikes again. This will be standard going forward as developers spin delays to play as positive PR.

A little overtime isn’t the worst thing in the world. Not sure why this generation hates it so much.

Perhaps these companies shouldn’t commit to schedules they are not staffed to meet.

They grew up getting trophies whether they won or lost. Success was always irrelevant. Now they have no work ethic. Shocked

 

[ethomaz]

I'm fine with that.

The delay is only few weeks.

Of course they could plan a better date for the next patch.

 

[Aurelian]

The emerging excuse strikes again. This will be standard going forward as developers spin delays to play as positive PR.

A little overtime isn’t the worst thing in the world. Not sure why this generation hates it so much.

Perhaps these companies shouldn’t commit to schedules they are not staffed to meet.

There's a difference between "a little overtime" and "basically living in the office," which is what crunch frequently is.

Remember how Rockstar was bragging about some people putting in 100-hour weeks to finish RDR2? That's not unheard of elsewhere. And they'll claim it's voluntary, but it's voluntary in the same way that attending your company's team-building exercise is voluntary... that is, you'll be the first one they fire if they don't make their targets.

 

[renzolama]

This would be meaningful if every single severely unbalanced / broken piece of gear in crucible hadn't required 60-90 days to be patched for five years now. It's a perfect example of how developers are now going to immediately ruin the 'we're trying to avoid crunch' discussion by abusing it at every opportunity just like they have every other reasonable discussion point around the difficulties of AAA game development over the past decade.

 

[Naru]

Funny if you think they did have more free time because of that... most likely not, they just had other priorities. I am ok if what they said is actually true though.

 

[Revolutionary]

I'm trying my best to understand but I can't reconcile the fact that a SINGLE FUCKING WEAPON apparently takes hundreds or thousands of man hours to fix.
The only conclusion I can draw is that the majority of their team is already crunching on Shadowkeep and can't be pulled away from it.

Edit: Didn't know there was already a patch in the QA pipeline because the article didn't mention it. Makes a lot more sense now.

 

[cr0w]

Lord of Wolves' problems are almost entirely isolated to the PC, but they have to roll out the patch on all three platforms and make sure the adjustments they make to PVP don't fuck the weapon in PvE or remove what makes it special. It's not like you can just snap your fingers and patch a weapon across three systems in an MMO in five minutes. There's a metric shit ton of testing required for that one weapon in all modes.

 

[ookami]

I'm trying my best to understand but I can't reconcile the fact that a SINGLE FUCKING WEAPON apparently takes hundreds of man hours to fix.
The only conclusion I can draw is that the majority of their team is already crunching on Shadowkeep and can't be pulled away from it.

Well as they said in the clip provided in the OP, they are right now in the process of delivering a patch (which means on all platforms). Either they're still in QA on this patch or they're done, they have to deliver it on the pre-established date (would not be a problem if they would first patch PC and then other platforms but I guess they want everyone to get this at the same time).
They acknowledged they wouldn't have the time to put QA/testing on the exotic weapon for the patch delivery date. So they're just pushing the weapon part for the next patch.

 

[Pejo]

Looks like we just saw the latest graduates from the EA Spin School.

"They're not loot boxes, they're surprise mechanics!"

 

[Revolutionary]

Well as they said in the clip provided in the OP, they are right now in the process of delivering a patch (which means on all platforms). Either they're still in QA on this patch or they're done, they have to deliver it on the pre-established date (would not be a problem if they would first patch PC and then other platforms but I guess they want everyone to get this at the same time).
They acknowledged they wouldn't have the time to put QA/testing on the exotic weapon for the patch delivery date. So they're just pushing this for the next one.

Oh, I assumed the clip was another GI.biz link because, in my experience, Twitch clips usually embed into the post.
Regardless, that makes a LOT more sense. Would have liked to have seen that explanation in the article or OP. Thanks for clearing it up.

 

[Dynasty8]

Lord of Wolves' problems are almost entirely isolated to the PC, but they have to roll out the patch on all three platforms and make sure the adjustments they make to PVP don't fuck the weapon in PvE or remove what makes it special. It's not like you can just snap your fingers and patch a weapon across three systems in an MMO in five minutes. There's a metric shit ton of testing required for that one weapon in all modes.

Agreed. It's not as simple as people make it out to be. I used to be in the same boat and assumed it was a simple fix. This issue seems to mainly be with PC, I'm not really seeing it on console... They have to factor in the various game modes (raids, PvP, Gambit, etc) and how the balance would affect those outcomes. One thing destiny does really well is allow you to take any loadout to any playlist and not be restricted. Might not appear as a big deal to some, but it's something I've come to really appreciate about the game.

 

[ookami]

Would have liked to have seen that explanation in the article or OP. Thanks for clearing it up.

Yeah, in fact, MiyazakiHatesKojima did quote exactly what Luke Smith said. To be frank the explanation itself isn't really clear.
But when programming is a part of your work or knows a bit about videogame development process' you understand much better what he means by patch factory.