Games that were crap at launch but are great now

CruelCoin

Hi Guys,

What games have you played that started very poorly, but have since improved greatly?

Help each other to find great games they had given up for dead!

For me: Elder Scrolls Online: I played this back in the Beta, and ye gods was it crap. But after patch 6, the combat is meatier, flow is better, and overall its a completely different game now. I can very heartily recommend this once mongrel-mutt turned pedigree show dog.

Rome: Total War 2: This thing was broken beyond belief. Poorly optimised and buggy. But it now plays like a dream.

Rust: Very basic to begin with. Then they decided to start again. Literally, they threw out all of the code, all of it! And they have now rewritten the game from scratch. Its a beast now, and keeps going from strength to strength, with a weekly update/changlog/community communication that puts other indie developers to shame.

And you?

Stone Deaf 4evr

Battlefield 4.

Mickeroo

Stone Deaf 4evr wrote: »

Battlefield 4.

Any online FPS really, they're always considerably better games a year after release (for the most part).

CruelCoin

Stone Deaf 4evr wrote: »

Battlefield 4.

Aye, now that we can actually connect to a game, it turns out the games plays pretty ok!

Generic Dreadhead

Destiny

GTA Online would be the prime example of this. It was extremely buggy and problematic at launch, but now it's become actually pretty fun. However, they really need to add extra heists.

Generic Dreadhead

^ Just to add to that, the whole GTA Online experience was average at launch, trading wins on Criminal Records etc. I like it now...... but my god the loading etc between lobbies killed it for me personally

Cormac...

Cormac... wrote: »

^ Just to add to that, the whole GTA Online experience was average at launch, trading wins on Criminal Records etc. I like it now...... but my god the loading etc between lobbies killed it for me personally

There's nothing worse than getting an invitation to a heist, clicking into it, going through the whole loading screen on the way to the lobby, before getting a message saying, "the heist you're trying to join is full of players", and then having to go through the loading screen to return back to the session you were playing in (though sometimes it might be an entirely new one)

Robert ninja

GTA's divided online world is what made me drop the game and lose a lot of respect for R*. If they can't make a seamless online experience with the budget they had then there's no hope for them.

I always wanted it to be a populated online environment where you could see heists, robberies and races happening all around San Andreas with maybe 50-100 players. But no... 32 player 'freeroam' waiting room where all you do is dick around until someone starts a mission which transports you to an entirely new San Andreas made just for that activity and a nice long loading screen and player disconnects to enrich the experience.

Kimbot

Brokenfield 4 :P its actually a good game now thankfully

Generic Dreadhead

Robert ninja wrote: »

GTA's divided online world is what made me drop the game and lose a lot of respect for R*. If they can't make a seamless online experience with the budget they had then there's no hope for them.

Wrong thread so :P

Robert ninja

pls dun ban me m8

CruelCoin

Deleted User wrote: »

GTA Online would be the prime example of this. It was extremely buggy and problematic at launch, but now it's become actually pretty fun. However, they really need to add extra heists.

I play a lot of the Online GTA, but the biggest problem for me is that i play solo, and the matchmaker is still terrible. It can take an age to form a group, and then for the heist to fail because one guy drops out? pfffft.

CruelCoin

CruelCoin wrote: »

I play a lot of the Online GTA, but the biggest problem for me is that i play solo, and the matchmaker is still terrible. It can take an age to form a group, and then for the heist to fail because one guy drops out? pfffft.

Ugghhh. The amount of times that people join a heist and then leave just as it begins is so frustrating. You just know they're doing it on purpose too.

You know what I'd love too? If games implemented a rule where you have to be above.. 16.. maybe even older .. to be allowed to use voice chat. And that adequate proof needs to be provided.

Kimbot

Deleted User wrote: »

Ugghhh. The amount of times that people join a heist and then leave just as it begins is so frustrating. You just know they're doing it on purpose too.

You know what I'd love too? If games implemented a rule where you have to be above.. 16.. maybe even older .. to be allowed to use voice chat. And that adequate proof needs to be provided.

In fairness people will find a way around it if they did implement it.

Nody

Batman franchise would be a classic example
All MMos on launch day / new expansion / major patch day

Zillah

CruelCoin wrote: »

Rome: Total War 2: This thing was broken beyond belief. Poorly optimised and buggy. But it now plays like a dream.

They might have patched up the technical problems, but what about the terrible game design decisions?

Generic Dreadhead

Nody wrote: »

Batman franchise would be a classic example

Wut?

Nody

Cormac... wrote: »

Wut?

Generic Dreadhead

^ thought you meant the series overall beginning with AA

Nody

Cormac... wrote: »

^ thought you meant the series overall beginning with AA

Well excluding the first one they all have had game breaking bugs at release on the PC which only got worse as the series progressed. Now the GoTY edition a year later and the game are fine; hence crap at launch (game breaking bugs) but great now

Gazzmonkey

Got Skyrim back in 11/11/11 and it was a mess of a game, lots of bugs & broken features...

Fast forward two years and it was a much more stable product, still not without its quirks though.

cherryghost

CS:GO needed a handful of patches before it was balanced.

CraigM84

Stone Deaf 4evr wrote: »

Battlefield 4.

just picked this up on monday for pc, not bad at all, bit of getting used to after messing round with black ops 2 the last while, but by far more enjoyable than bf3

Thinkingaboutit

Rome 2 Total War crashed every five minutes when I got it on release. Now it's perfectly stable, and a pretty well made game.

CiDeRmAn

The most recent one I can say is Drive Club, they released a partially finished game that just disappointed again and again.
But, buying the game now and accepting the massive updates required, it's probably the best racing title I've played since MSR and PGR, with which Drive Club shares a lot of DNA, as well as developers.

DeSelby83

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

The most recent one I can say is Drive Club, they released a partially finished game that just disappointed again and again.
But, buying the game now and accepting the massive updates required, it's probably the best racing title I've played since MSR and PGR, with which Drive Club shares a lot of DNA, as well as developers.

i dip in and out of driveclub ps+ edition every now and again, dont have the time to sink a lot of hours in, but every time I play it i think man i should buy the full version. I think its great

Arytonblue

CruelCoin wrote: »

Rome: Total War 2: This thing was broken beyond belief. Poorly optimised and buggy. But it now plays like a dream.

Zillah wrote: »

They might have patched up the technical problems, but what about the terrible game design decisions?

Yeah CA definitely dropped the ball with the release(as they have often done, looking at you Empire) and the Emperor Edition definitely fixed a lot of amateurish game-breaking bugs and glitches. But as Zilla said, the actual game is just nowhere near good enough.

Diplomacy is still awful and is almost completely pointless. The campaign map was simplified and streamlined to the core(almost all settlements are the same), and the AI is still shocking(of course half of the enemy's army are useless slinger units, why not?). Taking out cut-scenes of agents actions(which are also pointless now), a bizarre design for the family/political system(again, pointless) with no family tree, and that's before mentioning the battles, which are still bloody tedious, with crappy unit cards that all look the same and just simply awful battle AI.

So yeah, still playing Medieval 2 and Rome 1 is the bomb.

SeantheMan

Battlefield 2 ,

It wasn't the best game at launch, bugs everywhere.
But little by little they released updates and free content and made it into an amazing game.

Not an exception to the rule, but a weird case.......is Team Fortress 2

It was good at launch, very enjoyable. Then they added lots of free content and game modes and community events and made it amazing....but then they didn't know when to stop...and now it's just a big hat/item trading game where you have 100's of 'idle achievement' servers where people leave their games on to acquire hats and drops.