More than two million people have downloaded and played the demo for Outriders since its release a week ago, developer People Can Fly said in a post today, and so far it seems to have gone pretty well. The studio explained that the backend struggled to handle the load during the first few hours of release and some players were (and, as far as I know, still are) experiencing technical issues, but a patch is on the way that will hopefully address the worst of them, and tweaks and tuning to gameplay are also in the works.
"To cut a long story short, while our planned-for infrastructure was ready for the raw number of total expected players, the speed with which those players were joining the demo during those first few hours surpassed even our expectations. So, while our backend systems scaled automatically and according to player population demand, they were unable to scale fast enough at the time," the studio said.
"Since then we have made changes to the backend and we should not experience a repeat of this particular issue when the game fully launches."
People Can Fly is focused primarily on readying Outriders for full release, but a patch for the demo is expected to be ready to roll out early next week. This is what we can expect:
- Added a Motion Blur Toggle
- Made minor tweaks to frame rate output for certain items in cutscenes, however, we are working on a more comprehensive fix for the future
- Fixed a crash that repeatedly occurred when opening the menu or inventory
- Made improvements to cut down on the time it takes to Matchmake
- Fixed a bug that deletes player gear if their connection drops out during a transition
- Improved subtitle display and synchronization during the “Bad Day” quest
- Made other minor improvements and fixes
Gameplay adjustments in response to player feedback will be made in a backend update tomorrow that will not require any downloads. Some of those tweaks will only impact the demo and may not be seen in the main game, because some players are going a little too ham for their own good.
"While we have balanced the main game with a certain progression system, this progression may be impacted by heavy farming of gear and/or mods in the demo. As some players are front-loading a lot of that progression (such as by trying to fill their mod library or acquire multiple Legendaries) within the demo content already, their experience of parts of the main game may well be impacted," the studio explained.
"Of course, it's every player's decision how to play the game for themselves and we do not want to prevent people from farming the demo for gear if they enjoy it. However, we would like to ensure that this process is not overly simplistic, easy or prone to exploitation."
Here's what's in the pipe:
Changes to Captains
- The Captain mob ability "Healing Light" will have its effectiveness reduced.
- The Captain mob ability "From the Ashes" and "Phoenix Aura" will have their cooldowns increased.
- Some players were finding it hard to fully kill Captains who would trigger these abilities, making for a frustrating rather than a challenging but fun encounter.
Changes to Gauss
- Gauss will have his health points increased for repeat playthroughs.
- This is to ensure that he remains fun and challenging for players who are overpowered at this point in the story.
- Gauss healing from his ability "Steel Wall" will be increased.
Changes to loot drops
While we do not want to prevent farming runs (We get it!), the lootcave discovered via the triple chest-run, as well as the store exploit, do not feel to be within the spirit of the game. To that end, we are redirecting farming efforts to mechanics in the game that may be more enjoyable for players to play through and repeat.
- Epic items will no longer appear in shops and vendors (within the demo).
- Chests will no longer drop legendary items.
- Side quest rewards (on repeat runs) will now have a chance to drop legendary items.
- Drop rates for enemies are NOT being changed at this time as we feel these are balanced quite well for the average player experience. RIP that captain.
Developers are also working on fixes or changes to problems with matchmaking, camera shake during cutscenes, disappearing inventory items, and cheating, but some of those changes won't be seen until the full game is released. That will take place—no joke—on April 1. If you haven't tried the Outriders demo yet, let me first encourage you to do so (it's available on Steam and really quite good) and second, help you get off to a solid start with our guide to the game's classes.
