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Nuvendil on 07 April 2018
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AngryLittleAlchemist said:
Nuvendil said:

It is NOT always my conclusion.  There are only 2 devs I give that one to.  Capcom and Square Enix with regards to this one game.  Oh and the team at 2K who brought over WWE.  I'm fully understanding of the issues and I don't expect Switch versions to pop out of the ground.  But this. Is. Ridiculous.

Here's the thing, I work in Unreal Engine 4, I know the kind of issues these updates bring and can tell you 1) no update I've seen has caused crippling issues that would necessitate a long, protracted fixing period, 2) whenever an update does cause a fuss, a follow up that fixes it comes within WEEKS, and 3) I would have heard about the Switch compatibility updates causing any major issues or necessitating big changes and no, they didn't.  Then there's the evidence that this line is BS.  Multiple Unreal Engine 4 games have come over and every dev has said the process of getting the foundations in is pretty painless.  Snake Pass is another prominent example of this.  Square has had dev kits from what we can gather for ages.  Since before the Switch launched.  Studio Wild Card didn't get a dev kit and set Abstraction Games on the port until mere months prior to GDC.  The fact Ark has a presentable build, be it alpha or not, and Dragon Quest XI doesn't even have a *screenshot* is laughable.  And yes, exactly, ARK is a major pain on systems much stronger than the Switch.  So why is Dragon Quest XI, a much cleaner game that is much lighter on the hardware, not even in alpha.  I mean, the way he talks about it it sounds like the Switch version hasn't even started since updating UE4 would be near step 1 so what on earth have they been doing for over 12 months?  Twiddling their thumbs?  

Capcom and Square Enix are like, some of the biggest Japanese publishers around, and coincidentally their games are probably the most requested ones on the Switch. When you consider we're talking about Japanese publishers in particular, saying you only draw that conclusion for two publishers isn't really saying a lot, right? Although really, I wasn't talking about you, not particularly anyways. That's just the narrative that keeps popping up from this forum.

Thank you for replying, by the way. I admit I am a layman and do not know much about the specifics of developing games on certain engines. Is it possible that something in the game causes specific issues that aren't true for other Unreal Engine projects? I do find what you're saying about Ark to be a bit far, though. I mean, my entire point was that the version of Ark on the Switch could already borrow heavily from the mobile phone version, and that the standard of quality might be significantly lower. Ark's problem isn't that it's more technically advanced than Dragon Quest (it probably is in some regards), it's just that it has a history of poor management and stability. So I don't really think there's much of a point in the argument that "it's laughable the Switch version doesn't even have a screenshot" or "some small dev already has their game coming to the system"  because for all we know the reasoning can be that Square Enix doesn't want to release screenshots too early before the game is out. I mean, really, don't a lot of devs wait till a game build is at least *revealed* before they show off screenshots? Again, what is being argued here mostly just seems like a management kind of thing. You do make a good point though, that you would think it is harder to port Ark than it is Dragon Quest. And it probably is, but if the standard of quality is lower and it's based on another version of the game, that might explain why there's such a big difference in release. 

So, what is your theory about why it is taking so long? If I may ask?

I give it to Capcom because of their numerous dumb decisions - Street Fighter v, Dead Rising 4 - and the fact their big coming out for Switch was a SFII remaster, a 3DS port they won't localize, and two more handheld ports that aren't veru impressive at all.  And they keep calling them tests just to be extra contemptuous.  Their incompetency is mostly just as a business.  Square I feel has done great...EXCEPT with this game, which is baffling because this was supposed to be the big one.

Ark is more advanced from what I can see.  Not to a huge degree.  But my point was a company the size of Square with a year and a half of time should have something when an indie ddv has results in a few months. 

As for theories, going by Square's history, mismanagement, bureaucracy, underestimating Switch's success.  Square is a company that has mismanaged numerous projects mostly due to these kinds of problems.  I certainly hope they aren't struggling cause that would be sad when you consider other, more technically demanding and sophisticated games that were announced later are up and running.  Dragon Quest XI is a very lovely game but it's no tech showpiece.