Patch, explained

[Kacper | CEO]

tldr - patch coming, let us know what bugs bother you the most


Hi, I'm Kacper!
I run Artificer, the studio that did Sumerian Six.
As you probably noticed, the patch is going superslow.

I must apologize to you, as I withheld that patch from getting done. Here's why.


As you're probably aware, the games industry is on a bumpy road.
Plenty projects got cancelled, project funding is superhard to come by, many studios closed, a lot of people lost their jobs, and of those a big portion is still looking, or were forced to quit the industry entirely.
This affected us as well. Long story short, we started this year as a team of 44, we're now 13. Game journalists wrote more about that downscaling than they did about the actual game.
Big chunk of the team put in a lot of dedicated effort, even at the point where they already knew they'd be out of their job before the game is out.
So - please trust me when I write that the delay is not because the team lacks the good will to put it together.

In order to keep the studio alive and be at a position to support Sumerian Six, the studio must remain afloat, and that means signing a new project.
For that to happen, we need to get to a point where we have a presentable demo that someone would want to invest in.
If this doesn't happen, the studio goes under, the team is out of jobs, with chances of finding new jobs being pretty thin, and - last but not least, no one to patch Sumerian Six ;)

So I have made the decision to reroute all resources, all hands on deck, full steam ahead, on a project that would keep us afloat. If you're into WW2 movies, think Das Boot - Gibraltar scene, minus the foreworks.
I have been vehemently fought on this decision internally, but I've lost too many people already; and while this causes frustration on your end, I believe it is the right call.


Now -- I know that's not exactly your problem; you spent your hard-earned money on our game, and it breaks. And it just should not be like that. It's not right, and I fully understand and agree.
I'm writing this because I think we're nearing a point where we can reroute some coding power to the patch without sinking the whole operation.
While we have a list of priority fixes to do, I assume some of the reported bugs that seem insignificant to us - seem very significant to you. So let's get on the same page.
If you, personally, are waiting for a specific bug/repetitive crash to be fixed, please let me know here, and we'll focus on those.
While I don't think the team we have left will be able to address all the requests, we'll try to squeeze in what we can.


Thank you for sticking with us, and once again - I'm sorry.

[thee.alemaozinho]

Completely understood and full support for this course. I, personally, did only encounter a few minor graphical bugs and some behaviors not resetting properly. Nothing game breaking, all in all it was a great experience (and I think Steam reviews tell the same story) and I think all of the team for the dedication and effort that could be seen in the final product.

Even if no further patch arrives it is a great game, best of luck and success to your future endeavors!

[lynchie72]

You made the right decision and I commend you. Thank you for the information. I bought the game when it released. Which is unusual for me - I normally wait several months after a game is released before purchasing. Not so much to get it in a sale but to find it in a polished and feature complete state for probably the single playthrough I'll complete.

The reason I bought this game at the time was because of my positive experience with your previous game Showgunners and noted you had released free content updates after it's release. Which was a really nice thing to do.

It seems that Artificer are a pretty talented bunch and also good people. I'm sorry to hear of your difficulties and especially people losing their jobs. Hopefully they will find rewarding employment again soon.

I look forward to playing this game sometime in the future. I do not regret the purchase.

[Madjo]

Thanks for the feedback.
I understand your position and we'll wait.

On my side I'm particularly concerned by the recurrent crashes.
Reported on the Steam Bug page, and also under discussion on discord with AQQ.

Cheers and wishes of courage for your and the team.

[AdApt*]

I haven't played for a couple of weeks apart from testing things for other players on here, but these are the bugs which annoy me the most.

Apart from the occasional crash which has already been mentioned. There is a rare instance where the game will "crash", leaving an error on the desktop, but the game will continue running and be playable.

Flickering Shadows:
It happens when zoomed out far enough, on several maps.
It doesn't happen with all shadows.
Running on ultra settings but it also happens on high or medium settings.

Siegfried (Character):
Sometimes if I use Spirit Form, then load a save while it's still active, the ghost's sound effect still plays even though it's not active in the save I loaded. The only way to get rid of it is to exit and restart the game.
The same issue happens with the Zone of Invisibility sound effect.
There is also a bug where after using Zone of Invisibility, he still walks around with the device he uses for the skill.

Action Planner:
After executing queued actions, characters who were crouched will be standing instead of moving back into their crouched position.

Rare but worth mentioning.. sometimes an enemy will stop patrolling.
In this case it was impossible to kill the other two enemies, or at least the enemy next to the Geist, without the alarm being raised by the Geist, who stopped moving.
https://imgur.com/a/DhLlbS4

I hope you are able to build your team back up, and those who lost their jobs are able to find work again soon. Thank you for not throwing the towel in on this.
This game is right up there with the MiMiMi games and is much better than their last release. Hopefully you can keep this genre alive, as well as create different games.

All the best.

[RudiGr]

Hope you'll stay alive and wish you a success with new game 👍!

I've tried to spread news about S6 on Discord servers with RTT games and I've already bought S6 as I purchase every game that is RTT to support studios making it (but unfortunately don't have free time to play it at the moment).

[Dagroth]

The worst issue I encountered was the constant crashes, making the game effectively unplayable (which I think I have seen reported in the bugs thread already, so I didn't see the need to repeat that).
In fact I asked for a refund because of that - I'm probably going to buy the game again, once I have some confirmation that the crashing was fixed.

[Aidanya]

Love the game, i am recommending it to everyone.
Sadly talent isn't always rewarded with the success it deserves.
I hope you guys will find that with your next game.

The bug i would like to see fixed is the missing challenge.
6/6 boxes opened but challenge for getting all skill boxes isn't awarded.

[Artificer Hitch | Producer]

Hello!

Patch 1.0.3 is now available on a testing branch, should you wish to aid us in checking it out.
If all goes well, we intend to release it to live before Christmas. :)

The scope and instructions on how to access it can be found in the announcement post below.
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1429850/view/527581130405185108?l=english

[TheMaster]

Loved this game, I hope you do another in the genre. I wish you every success regardless, you all deserve it :)