Does not look intentional to me, I mean I would expect a loading bar intended for the users to look a bit better than this. So might be something that slipped through from a dev build maybe? Lol
Hey - this is intentional, and aims to give players a visual representation of the loading time to get their game live. We'll put in an update in 'Announcements' imminently. Just for Steam at the moment, with consoles and Epic to come next week.
Does this also apply to when loading the menu after finishing a session in-game or just when first booting up?
It is so you have something to look at while you wait for the rather long loading time since the add-on manager was introduced. Also so you can see if it freezes at any point. Cue the inevitable questions about how far the green bar was along when it stopped moving...
Remember when the game started pretty much instantaneously? With this Add-on Manager (that we certainly didn’t need on PC and no one asked for) we have seen massively increased loading times (I would say by a factor of at least 20-30 times). Now we have a loading bar to highlight visually the degradation in this aspect of the game. I’d just rather have the instantaneous load back please, and we can toss add-on manager into the dustbin. I know, I know, blah blah consoles. Yet I don’t own a console…
Surely there must be a way to save whatever data the add-ons manager is building within our save file, then only rebuild that data if we install/uninstall something?
It’s a couple of minutes. Excruciating for some, no issue at all for those of us with a little patience. PC players complaining isn’t enough incentive for DTG to concurrently develop two entirely different game architectures, which is what would be required to take AoM out of the PC version. It’s how the game works now. You not having a console is irrelevant.
Exactly because of it would make sense if you could add a numeric value (f.e. from 0 to 100%) to exactly know where the progess has been stuck, if it did. Optionally maybe provide a detailed log Button. I mean in the end you are helping yourself with that and avoid unnessary discussions about where exactly a problem has occured. Just a suggestion.
Yep, the Add-on Manager that actively makes our experience on PC worse than TSW3. Slower loading times, and breaks mods. But some people still try to chime in saying Consoles aren't holding TSW back lol. I shouldn't need to have "patience" when it used to work fine. The overall experience got downgraded because one terrible console can't load all it's DLC at once. Of course us having our experience downgraded for something that isn't even an issue to us is relevant.
The weird thing is they put the add-on manager onto the 'terrible console' version of TSW2 with hardly any impact on loading times, then when it came to TSW3 they 'improved' it and we've suffered an excruciating 3 minute wait ever since.
It’s not the bar that’s the issue, it’s why it’s needed that’s clearly the problem. From clicking the icon in TSW3 I would be in the game as quickly as I could click through the loading fluff. Now I have this 20-30 second wait before all that starts because DTGs solution to solving an issue on 1 platform was to make the game just that little bit worse for everyone else. I go in and out of the game a lot and those extra 20-30 seconds add up when repeated often. I can’t imagine what the wait must be like on a slower SSD or HDD. If they have to include it in the build then fine, just disable the damn thing on PC and then everyone’s happy. The loading bar is now a visual reminder each time you start the game that this new version you’ve paid for is, in many ways, worse than the last.
I don't even care about loading times, I just think this loading bar looks ridiculously cheap and ugly. A bright green bar with 3D-like shading, rounded corners and a black border, when the UI in the whole game is minimalistic, rectangular and two-tone? And the fact that they left in the rotating spinner above it just makes it even more ridiculous... who keeps two entirely different loading indicators right next to each other? Do they not have a qualified UI designer at DTG? Though after they choose gray as the highlight color for menu buttons, or a candy bar changing colors for distance measurement, I wouldn't be surprised if that is the case...
Exactly how long do you need to wait? If you don’t understand that DTG can’t have two separate game architectures and the one that worked on PC and console no longer works on console, so a new one had to be made for everyone, then there’s nothing more to say. Add on Manager isn’t a little bolt on accessory, it is woven into every nook and cranny of the game’s core and DTG are not going to have two core games in development concurrently. Having to wait a few seconds longer is just a side effect (and it is a longer wait than before on all platforms) but if you can’t wait a few seconds for a game to load then there’s no helping you. You will need patience because it isn’t getting changed back.
Of course they can. They choose not to for whatever reason but it is a choice, not an inevitability. Also, it’s not consoles plural, it’s console.
It's not a few seconds. It's like 40+ seconds extra every startup, on a very good NVME SSD, and a very good CPU. It presumably gets longer the more content you have. When I'm trying to test changes in a mod or timetable, that can quickly add up to an extra 10 minutes wasted, for no reason other than a LOVE console not being able to load the DLC properly. If that console is unable to load all DLC, it should no longer be supported going forward. We shouldn't all be having our experience made worse, because of some stupid Sony imposed limitation. Beyond the time constraints, it's the fact that it's broken the vast majority of mods. So what did PC users get out of it? A slower, degraded experience. Not one single positive.
They managed to have "two separate game architectures" for TSW3. It was only enabled on the consoles that needed it, so they certainly can manage it.
Exactly. At some point a decision was made to implement it across all platforms and it’s made the PC experience significantly worse because of it. This loading bar serves as a handy reminder of that fact.
That was while development was continuing on the new version for the other platforms, which took a lot of work. It is certainly possible to run two completely different games concurrently but it isn’t sustainable. It isn’t going to go back to that so everyone (PC and consoles) are stuck with the same game and the same longer loading times.
This was more the case that DTG wanted to get it out to PS5 owners ASAP, so that they could access all of their content. The intention was always to have add-ons manager on all platforms going forward as it was expected to improve memory usage on the Gen 8 platforms and it being easier to work from a single codebase rather than one for PC and one for console. This is a bad take. The PS5 can now load content properly because of add-ons manager, it isn't holding anything back now as the issue has been resolved. Why should DTG be expected to drop 1/3 of their userbase just because of temporary issues with unofficially supported content like mods? It's just gatekeeping. You probably wouldn't like it if DTG turned around and dropped PC support to go console only. Problems that affect multiple platforms are always going to be more important than PC only mods, and this is the correct approach. Unofficial mods aren't DTG's problem, but they're still going out of their way to try and resolve the conflict mods have with add-ons manager anyway. I'm sure these issues will be sorted eventually. All in good time
I just timed my load up from desktop to main menu in TSW4 and from clicking the icon to being fully loaded in at the main menu is 22 seconds. From desktop to being fully loaded into a route (in this case Antelope Valley) was 51 seconds. Where are people seeing these longer load in times?
That’s approx 21 seconds longer than it used to take though. Multiply that by many times if you’re doing stuff in the editor and wish to test it in the game (this isn’t about mods btw) and it becomes a royal PITA. That is, of course, the quickest it will be. As the collection grows it’s only going to take longer. If you’re on a slower drive it can be much more than 22 seconds.
Very true. I can totally see it from that standpoint. I guess come to think of it I do remember it was quite fast before. Almost instantly. I figured 22 seconds wasn't too bad, all things considered. But having to go back and forth for mod testing would indeed be a PITA.
I also think that the loading times have been unnecessarily prolonged. There is simply no logical reason to penalize PC players with the Addon Manager and the resulting loading times.
Umm, why couldn't they? Back in the PS2 ->PS3 transition era game developers sometimes used to make two entirely different versions of their games so they can sell them on both consoles. They just don't want to have two versions, because god forbid they ever do more than the bare minimum. Of course there is no issue releasing several versions when it's about re-selling it for more money...
