What will it take to get cross-platform simultaneous content parity???

[(PSN)TheRallykiller]

@[DE]Rebecca,

Is there anyway the team could share the laundry list of changes that need to happen on all platforms (similar to the controller/cursor/UI update) for the community to have simultaneous content parity between PC, PS4, and Xbox One?

IMHO, putting the information out there creates a rough roadmap for people to see every step of the process, as well as the ultimate goal: excellence in platform performance and content across all platforms and communities.

You folks really do a great job of being more transparent than anyone else in the industry (in my opinion) and providing a lot of information about the development process for people who want to know the minutia—I think this would be an opportunity to keep up with that standard.

I personally became way more welcoming and tolerant of the learning curve brought to consoles with the cursor once I read Steve's tweets and delved deeper in the Dev Workshop forum.  I think getting out ahead of changes (especially ones that could cause some UX issues temporarily) and hanging the proverbial carrot from a stick (great content & experiences) could really prevent future backlash to the extent I saw within the first few days of the recent update.

Thanks for working so hard to try and keep the game great, community happy, veterans pleased, new players welcomed, and all the other stuff I didn't mention.

Best,

TheRallykiller

[Omega-Shadowblade]

For starters they'd have to heavily slow down the PC versions hotfix and update rate, something they've stated they aren't willing to do. There was also some other reason but I just can't seem to recall the details.

[Xirka]

Microsoft and Sony would have to agree to it, and they will never do that.

[xXDeadsinxX]

It’s up to Microsoft and Sony, not DE.

[(XBOX)dude1286]

Microsoft under its current Xbox management might be willing, but Sony would refuse. Sony holds players' Fortnite accounts hostage if they are linked to a PlayStation.

[TotallyLagging]

Console updates must go through certification which makes updates slower

 

For cross platform to work you have to have them on the same build, which means slowing down PC updates, which means it'll never happen

[(PSN)TheRallykiller]

Thank you for the replies so far!

Based on comments the team has made during Devstreams, the goal is to shorten the gap in content release.

From what I understand based on Steve's tweets and comments during streams, UI/cursor/controller changes are a first step in a process to begin making the platforms similar enough so PC updates are being worked on alongside console so cert is a more manageable variable in terms of time gaps.

I know the console content analysis & review process is a factor, but my understanding is DE is taking this into account.  And although I can't speak for Microsoft or Sony, their respective cert processes seem to have the same semi-similar review windows.  Plus, console players have seen updates/content/hotfixes turned around in a couple days (contingent on size & scope) from console announcement to cert to release. 

Trove and FFXIV both have processes for cross-platform content release even w/cert, and I perceive DE to be well beyond the development capabilities of these aforementioned teams (though I could be wrong).

If PC drives development focus, I personally would like to see some #'s from DE that analyze active player bases for each platform.  Perhaps this information could merit an internal push for closer release windows between PC and console if an argument for ^ $$$ could be logically made.

So, although I appreciate the replies from passionate Tenno in the community, I'm hoping to get something a tad more "official" to validate and clarify Steve's statements via stream and social media. 

[Tsukinoki]

5 minutes ago, (PS4)TheRallykiller said:

Trove and FFXIV both have processes for cross-platform content release even w/cer

And this is because they hold back one platform until all of the others are able to be updated.

Which wouldn't work in WF due to how DE handles the dev process.
I mean look at how often they patch PC issues when a new update hits, especially large cinematic ones.  Why is that?  Because PC catches tons and tons of bugs.  By the time the console version of those come around all those bugs are ironed out and console players never see those bugs.

And many of those bugs are utter progress stoppers.
Not too long ago there was a bug there the inbox would pop up and crash people back to desktop for a large number of players and it was during an event that sent an inbox message to everyone so when you logged in the inbox would pop up and then you would crash.  DE was able to fix this bug within hours due to being able to immediately push out a bug fix.  On console though the update would have to go through certification which would take half a week or longer meaning that there would be a sizable portion of the playerbase that couldn't play the game at all until certification had ended.
There was another major progress stopper during the war within questline where during the "Purge" segment if your sentinel killed you it would hard crash.  And due to this it stopped a good number of players from being able to play beyond that point.  There was also a crash that happened during the queen fight segment for some players that persisted through relogs.  This left them completely incapable of playing the game as they couldn't abandon the quest or do anything else.  DE had that bug patched within 3 hours, which again would have been impossible to go through console certification in that amount of time.

PC for all intents is basically a beta test-bed for the game that catches a majority of the bugs so that they are never seen on console.
Updating all platforms at the same time would leave 2 platforms with potential game stoppers with literally nothing DE could do about it until they can get another patch developed, ported to the consoles, and then pushed through certification.  That would take days at a minimum and potentially up to a week depending on certification time and porting effort.  And during that entire time period console players would be completely SOL.

Due to this DE updates PC first and then follows up with console patches once they believe they have a majority of the game stoppers found and ironed out.

[NullSaint]

Not to mention that I doubt even with content parity the PS4 version would be allowed to interact with the others, because their plat economy works differently than the others.

[spirit_of_76]

the other thing is that the PC acts as bug fix and testing to help with the certification.  It takes about 2 weeks to fix the larger bugs in a mainline update and about a month to get the minor glitches at the moment so PC will always be 1-6 weeks ahead of console due to the easy of bugfix and patching on the platform.  the most likely console to be updated at the same time as the PC Is Xbox If Microsoft decides to do a reverse version of play anywhere the Xbox uses the PC version of the game instead. 

[Birdframe_Prime]

To add an extra to the comments above;

The release for PC is the equivalent of the Public Test Region. The reason that Consoles have by far less bugs is because of the week or two of hotfixing that comes after PC release. Without the multi-thousand bug reports generated by the PC release, consoles would possibly melt...