Bloodborne Update 1.03

So I just got the new Bloodborne update. The one with the loading time patch. While I wasn't expecting too much from this I think it did shave some seconds off of some loads. Big areas still take about 30ish seconds when they took 40-45 before, but getting back to the dream is pretty snappy. But the biggest change is they finally added item descriptions to the loading screens. Now of course no one will remember what game they are playing since you aren't reminded every time you die, but I'll take it.

So what do ya'll think? Did you expect the load patch to be better or is this good enough to stomach it better?

I wasn't expecting miraculously improved loads so that sounds about right. I finished the game a couple days ago but maybe I'll play some NG+ and check it out.

Sounds like they fixed that suspend/resume matchmaking bug as well. I wonder if they got rid of the blood echoes glitch in this patch (the one where you sequence break the beginning of the game and then run around the clinic collecting near constant echoes).

Is everyone else seeing a bunch of pillars in the dream all of a sudden ?

30 seconds? I havent had a load time take more than 15. Maybe you need to defrag your ps4 harddrive? Im using the stock drive and Ive seen a much larger improvement.

@rongalaxy: Even the larger areas? Forbidden Woods, Central Yharnam, and the Cathedral Ward which are probably the biggest areas in the game all took about 30 seconds. The smaller areas definitely take far less. Upper Cathedral Ward takes about 10-15 and Hemwick is maybe 20.

@ares42: Those have been there for a while, I think I first noticed them after it first became evening. They may have been there the whole time, though.

@ares42: pretty sure they were always there.

Anway, cool that this is out. I've been playin MK and Evolve mostly while slowly chipping away at my Ng+ in this. The new patch may be enough to get me to really start my second playthrough

Good enough for me, the load times for larger areas were basically the only thing stopping me from doing multiple playthroughs and the difference already feels significant. I'm more curious about framerate drops, it's been reported a lot of cases have been fixed (fog wall, witch summon in Chalice dungeon, etc).

A weird bug where your bloodstain mysteriously disappeared into the Lecture Building if you reloaded the game has been fixed, I had inadvertently lost many blood echoes before I knew about this. People say the memory leak has been fixed as well but I'll need to see for myself.

There's also a hefty amount of gameplay changes too, notably changes to QS bullet usage on several items (my favorite being Hunter Bone 6 to 5) and new invisible walls that prevent skips such as the one from the Clinic to Forbidden Woods.

Great patch, I feel invigorated to continue playing. Although I think people are getting hungry for main hand weapon adjustments.

Well, this is just messing with my head now.. played through the game 3+ times, watched a ton of videos etc, and clearly they have been there all along. Yet for some reason when I jumped in to test the patch they stood out like an eyesore to me ...

I have to say, I'm impressed. I thought, at best, the loading times will be reduced by 5 to 10 seconds. From what I've played however, it took 20 seconds to load me into Hemwick Charnel Lane, and when I died, it took only 12 seconds. I didn't notice any reduction in the loading times when going back to the Hunter's Dream; it still takes 10 seconds or so.

Oh cool. Maybe I'll be able to enjoy the game now. Load times were the true fear in that game for me.

Awesome. I was very sceptical about this "loadingtimes patch" becouse i have hear it all before but an 20-30% improvment on loadtimes is huge. Good on From for being the first developer ever to actualy reduce the loadtimes in a significant way with a patch. I didnt think it was bad before but its even better now.

This sounds great. Hopefully they will release DLC. Right now though I've completed everything and don't have a reason to go back and play more to experience any of the patch.

@ares42: Hah, that sounds pretty trippy. I saw them off in the mist when I was idling around at the dream, weird how you only just noticed.

If Jeff streams today we'll have the benefit of slightly shorter load times.

Also those pillars were one of the first things I noticed when I started playing the game. I was kind of hoping they would tie into the plot somehow or change but no, they remain the same throughout the entire playthrough. Just neat window dressing.

But how will I know what game I'm playing now that they've replaced the load screens with item descriptions?

They added item descriptions to the loading screens?!?!

For whatever reason knowing that REALLY makes me want to go and finally finish the game.

Nice to see item descriptions being back. More important than the load times to me. I didn't have that much of a problem with the load times to begin with. You don't see them that often anyways.

@ares42 What pillars are you guys even talking about? Did I miss them?

Some pretty huge differences. Here's some loading time info from digital foundary,

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2015-bloodborne-loading-times-improved

I'm really happy with the update. Loads are quite a bit better. Apparently they also fixed the bug where bosses would be hella easy, and some other stuff. It made my fight with The One Reborn seem like it was a bit harder than my first couple of playthroughs. Beat that thing on my first try in those, but had some troubles today. Maybe I was a bit under leveled on the new character, I dunno.

Either way, the load times are better, and that's rad.

They weren't that bad before, but it's cool if they've made it a little faster.

It's definitely nice if they add item descriptions to the loading screen. I was thinking a few days ago about how they could at least make the load screens more interesting for impatient people who don't like the load times. It's actually strange it was just a black screen with the title. I don't think their load screens have ever been that generic before.

@zevvion: In the background.

@ares42: Huh... never paid attention to that I guess.

Mensis still took me around 30, going back into the dream is super fast now though. 5-10 seconds tops. It is definitely improved, and thank god we have something to look at other than a title card.

load time for me is 17 secs, much noticeable from the 40 sec; also has the random lore you can read during load times a la dark souls; red phantoms always appear when i click the "death spot"

The loading screen reading looks hastily jammed in there, but it's better than nothing!

I've had a real problem with dead enemies falling through the earth since the update. Seems to only happen to dudes with item drops and it takes the item with the body when it happens. The good news is my loading times are super fast and I haven't had as many frames dropping or any audio hitches around the various fires in central or old yarnham. Framerate is not noticeably better in the lecture hall with those slime students though.

Word is that the Cosmic Daughter elevator is finally fixed! Time for that rematch.

@ares42 Those have always been there, but they might be slightly more apparent now, for whatever reason. They're a really cool visual callback to the Ash Lake area from Dark 1.

Biggest reduction seems to be respawning at Old Yharnam, 53 seconds down to 18, pretty huge. Both of the Yharnams (old and central) seemed to have some sort of issue.

You can see a slight graphical downgrade in the game but I didn't care that much since it is still looking great.

Hopefully, this won't be their last patch.

I noticed that too.

I don't know, seems a little sharper to me in most cases. In some areas the textures may be a bit weaker. It was probably a sacrifice they had to make to bring the now no longer happening FPS issues under control.

now all they need to do is stop the screen from darkening when you recover lost echoes....and keep trying to decrease the load time; 10 secs or less would be nice

I know most people wanted item descriptions in load screens, but I actually kind of liked the starkness of it just being the logo.

I noticed a lot of blurry textures and there's a noticeable overall downgrade. It also might just be me but it also seems they lowered down on the AF settings.

Frankly I don't know why at this stage of console hardware why developer don't just start giving players PC style graphical settings. I think it's about time.

@mordukai: I'm pretty sure that console companies don't want their consoles to be referred to as cheap PCs. But still, i really hope to see them implement a simplified graphics setting where it's just one option. The player can choose to either play on quality or performance. Quality can enable players to play the game on its best possible graphics settings while performance means locked frames and smooth play.

What I've liked about this patch:
-ELEVATORS FIXED! I quit while riding the first elevator in the Forbidden Woods and when I loaded I've been stuck with a glitched elevator since. For the past week and a bit I've had to go through that whole section of that area to get to the second elevator if I wanted to try to beat the Shadows of Yharnam which has been a pain in my ass and caused me to lose some momentum with the game

-Load times are WAY better. Easily half of what they were before

-I feel like they've rebalanced health for enemies in the Forbidden Woods. Those snake head dudes are WAYYY easier to kill now.

-Item descriptions in the load screen are way better than a useless titlecard

What I haven't liked:

-Cannon takes 12 bullets to fire?! the fuck?

-LOD took a bit of a dive. I can now count the amount of times I've seen pop-in going around corners every play session, ect where as before it happened so rarely that I would be hard struck to actually know how often that occurred prior.

The weird:

-Enemies like to fall through floors. Possibly related to different LOD settings.

I really like this patch, it's revitalized what I have been enjoying of the game, but these LOD parts have me a little worried what may happen going forward in the rest of the game.

@driadon: Yeah, the cannon nerf is a huge bummer. You can still hit 4 possible shots, but you need to use blood bullets before every shot and use every +QS stock rune. Not worth it for the 4th shot, honestly.

Here's a list of tested patch fixes collected from reddit:

Link from www.dualshockers.com

• The bug that reset custom body shapes after creating them has been fixed. Now you can make a hunter with any body shape and it won’t revert to default. Unfortunately the fix is not retroactive (source: Sentozero).
• Several glitches that allowed to skip some areas have been removed: Forbidden woods skip, Shadows of Yharnam jump glitch, Father Gas stair visceral (source: awxvn).
• The invisible floor under the elevator in the Cathedral Ward has now been removed and it’s a proper bottomless pit (source: TheHeroicOnion).
• An exploit that allowed for infinite blood echoes collection by killing the dogs in Forbidden Woods and then going back to Iosefka’s clinic has been removed (source: yourwifeandkids).
• Reloading the game does not cause lost Blood Echoes to disappear anymore. They will now be found on an enemy or in a pool on the ground (source: Opticability).
• The bullet cost for the use of several items has been adjusted (source: VoidInsanity).
  • Hunter’s Bone now costs 5 bullets (down from 6).
  • Choir Bell now costs 8 bullets (down from 1o).
  • Cannon now costs 12 bullets (up from 10).