Ocean makes bad decisions before every release. I think he's in a creative stalemate in general or does it on purpose by stretching out the release. Anyone knows that a 30 chapter figure sounds fantastic.
1) The decision to do 4k renders is the same weird decision at 60fps animation level in BAD. Needless to say we won't get that quality, it just won't be there, it will be upscaled 1080p. Not all СPUs will be able to output this if you don't have enough cores ( not all CPU's have hardware support for 4k decoding). But now it will take much longer to produce a single render.
Waiting for Ocean to whine again about how he needs to buy a new graphics card or his vision will be limited.
2) Switching to Blender completely is a step forward, but isn't this just another ploy? Blender is a good 3d package, but this program has its own limitation on polygons. You won't be able to create a render with 2 or 3 million polygons, and considering Ocean can't do optimization, are we waiting for Ocean's new post about switching to Maya, Unreal engine or something else?
Why learn Substance Painter? Ocean, do you even know what it is and how it works? Do you know you have to UV mapping before baking? Modellers do UV mapping for a few hours before baking in Substance Painter, is that what you're gonna do? Or maybe you are lying?
3) Everything you're talking about are 30 chapters, Blender, Substance Painter, AE, can only be realized if he hire a team. But this is not very believable considering that judging by Ocean's patreon he doesn't earn much, that he takes loans for a new video card and spends all his free money on music. And how will Ocean be able to attract professional 3d artists? How's he gonna pay for their work? Maybe he wants them to work for free? Or maybe he has a plan to increase his income in the short term? The question is rhetorical.
I get the distinct impression that Ocean lives in a dream world, and is adrift. He has no business plan, no clear understanding of the future of the game. He makes the game, he makes it long, he gets paid well, and he can make any excuse for delays in the future. Ask yourself this question: what has been true about what he has said over the last few years? This guy has no work ethic.
I get angry when DPC is compared to Ocean. He makes odd choices too, but I see what he wants, I see his plan and long term strategy. I can predict his moves. But Ocean has none of that. He just promises and that's it.
Sorry to get emotional.