BioWare outlines big Dragon Age: Inquisition patch due out today

BioWare has outlined its plan to update fantasy role-playing game Dragon Age: Inquisition.

Today, 9th December, the developer releases the game's second patch for PC, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4 and Xbox 360 - but not Xbox One. "We are working hard to get Patch 2 out on Xbox One as soon as possible," producer Scylla Costa wrote in a post on the BioWare blog.

This patch is focused on stability, Costa added. Here's what it tackles:

• Stability: Various crashes, freezes, audio/voice glitches, and many stability improvements.
• Gameplay: Conversations, quests, plot states, combat, UI, camera, controls, follower/enemy AI and path finding, exploits, radar, and search.
• Multiplayer: In addition to some of the gameplay improvements listed above, multiplayer fixes also cover areas such as animations, game mode bugs, stat reporting, and stability/crash fixes.
• PC: Numerous control & UI fixes, fixes to some hitching, improved Mantle performance, graphical glitches.

Beyond this patch, BioWare will release updates that focus on gameplay improvements, Costa said. Remember that party banter bug we reported on last month? BioWare said a future update will increase the percentage chance of banter happening for those affected.

Here's a rough outline of what the developer will focus on:

• Keyboard & Mouse controls: Patch 2 includes the first range of fixes towards addressing the feedback we've received on the PC controls; it cleans things up so you'll see fewer problems with the current layout. This gives us a more stable base upon which to work. After Patch 2 goes out, our next priority is to improve the PC mouse/keyboard controls further. We're investigating how to expand on PC usability and functionality to address specific requests from the community.
• Some people have reported problems with party banter firing. To find out more about how the Banter System works please go here. We have also identified that in some edge scenarios, banter isn't firing as often as we'd like, so we'll be increasing the percentage chance of it happening. This increase will come after Patch 2.

Looking further ahead, BioWare plans to add features and content to Dragon Age: Inquisition.

"As massive as Dragon Age: Inquisition already is, there were some things the team wanted to get in at launch, but we just ran out of time," Costa said.

"We'll be creating these new features and content and adding them into your game over time because we love our DAI players. Multiplayer will also be receiving regular content updates."

Today's patch couldn't come soon enough for some players who have struggled to get the game running well - particularly on PC.

A thread titled PC Community Concerns on the BioWare forum has reached over 200 pages and over five thousand posts. In it many players complain about driver support, frame-rate issues in cutscenes, as well as the keyboard and mouse controls.