Assassin's Creed series

I'm glad I'm not getting this one day 1 for sure. Hopefully by the new year all the bugs will be worked out and maybe even some good DLC.

I wouldn't say it's unplayable, just that it was released before it was ready. Most games are these days. Have to make the Christmas sales period, because everyone knows no one buys games the other 9 months of the year, amirite?

The bugs I'm being affected by:

* Fluctuating framerate (worked around by using Nvidia per-game driver configs to lower some settings)
* Arno falling through the map (experienced it once, then fast traveled to fix)
* AC Initiates profile being reset to beginner level (so much for all my AC3 and AC4 points!)

Hardly gamebreaking by any means, but this game does need attention asap.

Arno falling through the map happened to me. Kind of funny, actually.

"Desides wrote:

I wouldn't say it's unplayable, just that it was released before it was ready. Most games are these days. Have to make the Christmas sales period, because everyone knows no one buys games the other 9 months of the year, amirite?

The bugs I'm being affected by:

* Fluctuating framerate (worked around by using Nvidia per-game driver configs to lower some settings)
* Arno falling through the map (experienced it once, then fast traveled to fix)
* AC Initiates profile being reset to beginner level (so much for all my AC3 and AC4 points!)

Hardly gamebreaking by any means, but this game does need attention asap.

I don't buy games the rest of the year because the bozos don't release them the rest of the year :lol:

Ubi just posted a list of areas that will be addressed in patch 3.

With Patch 2 live for PS4 and PC—and, as of this writing, with the Xbox One version in the pipeline—we want to start sharing a bit about what we're working on for the next major update, Patch 3. As compared to the previous patch, Patch 3 is going to be larger in scope, addressing a number of bugs in the areas where you’re telling us you're having the most problems.

The list of specific fixes is not yet final, but the categories that we’re focusing on include:

Gameplay: this includes bugs like Arno getting stuck on certain areas of the map (including a few more hay carts), problems with getting into/out of cover, character animation bugs, and general camera problems
AI & Crowd: in this category are problems with NPC animations, crowd events, and crowd stations, NPC navigation issues, as well as bugs related to NPCs detecting Arno’s activities in various situations
Matchmaking & Connectivity: this covers a number of issues related to co-op play, including bugs with joining games in-progress and problems that happen during host migration
Menus & HUD: fixes in this category will address missing details in certain menus, problems with some of the mission objective and co-op update pop-ups, localization inconsistencies, as well as some of the issues with menus and pop-ups overlapping each other
General Stability: this includes fixes for a number of crash situations we've identified in both campaign and co-op modes.
Again, while the ultimate list of fixes for Patch 3 isn’t finalized yet, it will be soon. Part of what we want to do at this point is balance the competing desires to get as much as we can into the patch with getting it out quickly. Once we’ve locked down exactly what will be in Patch 3, we will update you again with a more specific set of patch notes. This next patch won't solve every problem, but we're expecting that it will dramatically improve your experience.

We are also investigating various performance issues including framerate drops, and are looking into how we can address them. We’ll tell you more about our progress on that topic in the coming days.

Still waiting for them to give Jesper Kyd a call to compose some damn city background music.

In related news about frame rates, at least on the PC version, it looks like some information has leaked as to why the PC version struggles even on the latest hardware, and also affects the console versions.

The game (in its current state) is issuing approximately 50,000 draw calls on the DirectX 11 API. Problem is, DX11 is only equipped to handle ~10,000 peak draw calls. What happens after that is a severe bottleneck with most draw calls culled or incorrectly rendered, resulting in texture/NPCs popping all over the place. On the other hand, consoles have to-the-metal access and almost non-existent API Overhead but significantly underpowered hardware which is not able to cope with the stress of the multitude of polygons. Simply put, its a very very bad port for the PC Platform and an unoptimized (some would even go as far as saying, unfinished) title on the consoles.

Tech babble to English translation: the game is doing 5 times as much work per frame than the graphics API allows, at least on the PC, for little to no benefit. Contrast with Battlefield 4, which also emphasizes lighting, yet runs great on everything.

I beat the game.

Did not like the ending at all, especially knowing we will never see Arno again. (Ubisoft has said they will now always introduce a new assassin in every game, no more Ezio trilogies.) I thought it was unsatisfying, especially given how the game speeds through the timeline of 1789-94. If you aren't familiar with the French Revolution, you won't know what's going on or why it's important. If there were a modern day component, then the modern day storyline could have served as the resolution, but nope… you fight the last boss, you win, the credits roll, you go to the post game.

Napoleon is in the game, but only for like 5 minutes. He and Arno had really good chemistry, but we only get a couple of scenes with them before Napoleon disappears forever.

Alex Amancio's AC games (Revelations, Unity) are really light and fast on story, and I think that's a detriment. We need more substance, IMO.

Overall, 8.5/10 on a real scale, not the video game review scale where 7 means it sucks. The game is really fun just to play, but the story it tells needed more work.

Between this and Rogue, we now have every major event of the 18th century depicted, so it's time for a new era. But it's also time to resolve the modern day story. Ubisoft has said there's a definitive conclusion, so let's conclude it.

"Desides wrote:

I beat the game.

Did not like the ending at all, especially knowing we will never see Arno again. (Ubisoft has said they will now always introduce a new assassin in every game, no more Ezio trilogies.) I thought it was unsatisfying, especially given how the game speeds through the timeline of 1789-94. If you aren't familiar with the French Revolution, you won't know what's going on or why it's important. If there were a modern day component, then the modern day storyline could have served as the resolution, but nope… you fight the last boss, you win, the credits roll, you go to the post game.

Napoleon is in the game, but only for like 5 minutes. He and Arno had really good chemistry, but we only get a couple of scenes with them before Napoleon disappears forever.

Alex Amancio's AC games (Revelations, Unity) are really light and fast on story, and I think that's a detriment. We need more substance, IMO.

Overall, 8.5/10 on a real scale, not the video game review scale where 7 means it sucks. The game is really fun just to play, but the story it tells needed more work.

Between this and Rogue, we now have every major event of the 18th century depicted, so it's time for a new era. But it's also time to resolve the modern day story. Ubisoft has said there's a definitive conclusion, so let's conclude it.

That was damn fast! Usually takes me 4-6 weeks to play through an AC game. But its never been a series that I'll sit down and play all day, even if I have the time. I also tend to doddle and explore, and spend a lot of time trying to complete the optional quests,

Thanks for the review. I'm looking forward to playing the game, but disapointed that the modern day element of the last one was so lacking, and is gone alltogether in this one.

"Unlucky 13 wrote:

That was damn fast! Usually takes me 4-6 weeks to play through an AC game. But its never been a series that I'll sit down and play all day, even if I have the time. I also tend to doddle and explore, and spend a lot of time trying to complete the optional quests,

Thanks for the review. I'm looking forward to playing the game, but disapointed that the modern day element of the last one was so lacking, and is gone alltogether in this one.

I started out doing a lot of sidequests, but it eventually got pointless when I realized the story was just a series of assassinations and you don't really need anything the sidequests can give you.

The next AC needs more substantive plot writing, both for the assassin being simulated and the modern day events.

Unity and Rogue have a really strong tie-in: the opening scene of Unity is one of the last missions of Rogue. Rogue explains what happens at the end of Unity's opening scene.

Rogue needs to come to the PC so I can play it.

Ubi screwed up the AC Unity launch so hard that they're giving away free stuff.

Am I eligible to receive the Dead Kings DLC for free?

Yes! Anyone that purchases Assassin’s Creed Unity on PS4, Xbox One or PC will be eligible.

Am I eligible to receive a free Ubisoft game?

If you purchased the Season Pass or Assassin’s Creed Unity Gold Edition (which includes the Season Pass), you are eligible to choose one free game from among a select list of Ubisoft titles.* These are:

The Crew
Far Cry 4
Watch Dogs
Assassin’s Creed Black Flag
Rayman Legends
Just Dance 2015
We are currently setting up the system to process this offer. We will provide an update on how to claim your free game soon.

So if you didn't have the Season Pass, you get free DLC. If you had the season pass or gold edition, you get the DLC anyway and a free game on top.

Far Cry 4 plz.

Damn

Patch 3 is out on all platforms. Has about 300 (no, really) fixes in it. I'm not posting the full change log, it's massive. But it has resulted in what appears to be more people playing the game in co-op now. I'm having an easier time matchmaking.

Patch 4 is now in the works. Should have performance fixes.

So....patch 4 is 6.7 gigs! for the PS4, and 40 gigs!!!! for the XBOX1. I guess good thing I have a PS4? I'll have to get up in the middle of the night to do it and stay within my bandwith limits still. Man, thats enormous.

The patch is enormous because they rebuilt the entire map of Paris to improve FPS. So you're redownloading the entire map. The PC version of Paris is apparently 10 GB or so. We'll see how large the PC version patch is; it's not out yet.

In related news, the new Catalyst Omega drivers and the latest GeForce beta drivers improve game performance on the PC.

I officially have the game, though I haven't opened it yet. Got it from my parents as a gift and just got home after a nine hour drive. Might pop it in and do the updates in the morning. Not going to dive into it for a bit until I'm done with DA:I though.

Club Competitions have finally started. You form a team of up to 4 assassins and then complete objectives to unlock gear. A lot of the legendary equipment is locked behind club competitions.

"Unlucky 13 wrote:

I officially have the game, though I haven't opened it yet. Got it from my parents as a gift and just got home after a nine hour drive. Might pop it in and do the updates in the morning. Not going to dive into it for a bit until I'm done with DA:I though.

Depending on how long you're going to take with DA:I, it might not be worth updating ACU ahead of time. There could be a fifth patch, since patch 4 has actually caused some regressions for a lot of people.

Did the update this AM. 6.4 gigs. I'll of course look for any other updates before I start it.

Club competitions have been opened for a week. Basically, you join a club, with a max of 40 players (IIRC). You then play cooperatively with members of the club to accumulate creed points, with certain missions and actions awarding double points during that week's competition. The group with the most points in its bracket wins a piece of legendary equipment.

It's actually pretty fun, and unlocking club assignments results in creed point multipliers. I've got like a 1.6x point multiplier naturally, plus the doubling effect from the competition missions. Getting 1500 creed points just for using a phantom blade on ONE target? I'll take it.

The Dead Kings DLC is out next Tuesday. Free for everyone. New city (Saint Denis), new story. Occurs in 1794, after the conclusion of the main storyline.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTum-VS71Dk

Very cool. I'll wait till then to start my playthrough then.

Well, I couldn't get onto the PSN all week, so I went ahead and started the game last night. Played through all of the intro missions, and liked it Felt like and played like an AC game. Graphics are a notch up on the PS4 from the PS3, though some of the cut scenes were a little rough around the edges. So far, no glitches of any kind.

One thing that I will say though is that they clearly expect you to know what you're doing out of the gate. I've played all of the games up to this point, so it wasn't a big deal for me, but you need to know how to most of the AC play style from the opening minute. Had a number of early missions that I had to do over 5+ times because I failed. Most of the other games allowed you to ease into it before the difficulty of the stealth really got going.

"Unlucky 13 wrote:

One thing that I will say though is that they clearly expect you to know what you're doing out of the gate. I've played all of the games up to this point, so it wasn't a big deal for me, but you need to know how to most of the AC play style from the opening minute. Had a number of early missions that I had to do over 5+ times because I failed. Most of the other games allowed you to ease into it before the difficulty of the stealth really got going.

Disagreed. It seems that way… and then you get tutorials in the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th missions. Basically, they stretched out the introduction for new players while giving you quick access to the open world for experienced players.

When you get halfway or so through the game, replay the first missions and you'll marvel at how easy breezy they are.

"Desides wrote:

Disagreed. It seems that way… and then you get tutorials in the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th missions. Basically, they stretched out the introduction for new players while giving you quick access to the open world for experienced players.

When you get halfway or so through the game, replay the first missions and you'll marvel at how easy breezy they are.

OK, I'll keep an eye out for that.

I felt that the change in the shop was interesting. Everything just laid out from the get go, but you have to unlock the ability to buy certain things. Reminded me of Tiger Woods Golf in that way. What irks me though are how so many things are dependant on playing online - which I cannot do. They seem to be moving away from the single player offline experience gradually.

"Unlucky 13 wrote:

OK, I'll keep an eye out for that.

I felt that the change in the shop was interesting. Everything just laid out from the get go, but you have to unlock the ability to buy certain things. Reminded me of Tiger Woods Golf in that way. What irks me though are how so many things are dependant on playing online - which I cannot do. They seem to be moving away from the single player offline experience gradually.

You won't have any problem going through the game due to equipment shortages. There's plenty to buy at every single level of proficiency. Unlocking the equipment is just a way to save money, IMO. I have no fear of the series shifting away from a core single player experience; remember, multiplayer has been in this series since Revelations.

One thing I couldn't stand about the campaign missions were the optional objectives (which actually became mandatory if you wanted those sweet skill points you can't get anywhere else). Some of them force you to change your play-style so much you end up being a lot more clumsy of an assassin than you intended to be. Frustrating.