Watch Dogs Graphics Downgraded on PC

[Mr Bean]

Given the frame rate issues on the console versions, their problems can't be blamed on ports.

There have been videos going up showing real time FPS drop like... looking at a wall with no other characters visible. Walking through doorways reliably produces a 5-8 fps drop. Climbing down while looking up can also tank frame rates but climbing up while looking up does not.

This is some very weird pre-alpha level bugs going on. The kind of things you expect when your game engine is 40% done and your just trying to throw together a set piece for a trailer.

[DaveJB]

Given the frame rate issues on the console versions, their problems can't be blamed on ports.

It sounds like the problems have different sources; the console versions are held back by the lack of CPU horsepower (the Xbone, which has a slightly faster CPU, actually seems to run the game better than the PS4), and the PC version seems to be overwhelming the now five-year-old DirectX 11 API, with both versions probably being exacerbated by bad coding.

What's even stranger is that Rogue uses the same engine, and near as I can tell doesn't have any major bugs or performance problems despite running on older hardware. Possibly the developers started off with the idea of having gigantic crowds, without giving a damn as to whether it was possible on the AC3+ engine and PS4/Xbone hardware.

[bilateralrope]

Possibly the developers started off with the idea of having gigantic crowds, without giving a damn as to whether it was possible on the AC3+ engine and PS4/Xbone hardware.

Then, when they found out that they couldn't do it, they pushed ahead with it anyway. Then decided to blame someone else.


As for Far Cry 4, Ubisoft isn't setting a dodgy embargo date. Instead, they are holding back the PC review code.

TotalBiscuit

Far cry 4 embargo is today at 2pm in the UK. We havent received our copy yet, some others reporting same

More TotalBiscuit

Being told Monday for Farcry 4 PC code. PC gamers are advised to hold off til we (myself, PCgamer etc) look at performance

PC Gamer

Why our Far Cry 4 review is delayed
Phil Savage
4 hours ago
Far Cry 4
Right now, Far Cry 4 reviews are popping up all over the internet. It is, by all reports, a great game. Unfortunately, we can neither confirm or deny that assessment. More troubling, given the launch state of Assassin's Creed: Unity, is that we can't tell you how it performs on PC. The reason is simple: we haven't yet received code.
If you're getting a sense of deja vu, it's because exactly the same thing happened with Unity. For Far Cry 4, Ubisoft held a console review event; giving multi-platform outlets the chance to have their reviews in place for today's embargo. We, naturally, need to play the game on PC. Last night, we were informed that code wouldn't arrive until Tuesday, the date of the game's launch.
Ubisoft are, of course, free to restrict pre-release access to their game in whatever way they see fit. We aren't entitled to review code, and could still offer a judgement—albeit a less timely one—without. However, it's a disappointing development when it comes in the same week as Assassin's Creed: Unity's launch. That game has since caused Ubisoft's share price to drop as much as 12.8%, and yesterday its more spectacular bugs caught the attention of the BBC.
In that news post, a Ubisoft spokesperson clarified the way the company was approaching reviews. "The nature of games themselves and the way they are being reviewed is changing, as evidenced by games like Assassin's Creed Unity, Destiny and The Crew—games that have significant online components," she said.
"Having the online elements available and having populated worlds is essential to creating a representative and complete experience for reviewers. Achieving this prior to launch is incredibly complex, which is why some games are being reviewed much closer—or as was the case with Destiny, even after—the game launches."
The difference, to my mind, is that Destiny is an MMO. Assassin's Creed: Unity is not. Far Cry 4 is not. They have online elements, yes, but they are not predominantly online games. As the gap between high and mid-range PC specs widens, as system requirements become increasingly more demanding, and as pre-order bonuses are marketed more aggressively; to also restrict reviews to being conceivably days after a game's launch is a worrying trend for consumers.
We asked Ubisoft for an official statement, which you will find below:
"The reason why we did not provide review code until now is that there is a title update which won’t be available before Monday prior to launch. However, we will officially communicate on the title update prior the release of the game so consumers are aware."

[TheFeniX]

Unity's problems aren't just poor performance on everything. There are many other glitches.

Bug-ridden Ubisoft games isn't really note-worthy. Their QA has always been shit, even before the market shifted to it's current form of "get players to beta test our software for $60 a pop and make sure they pre-ordered it first." What gets me is that FPS drop, especially when you're already pushing the low-end at 30FPS is stupidly easy to spot and this just reeks of "it's good enough, and gamers are stupid enough to buy it" mentality. Like I said, this would garner zero fucks from me had Ubisoft not been one of the main mouth-pieces for the idiocy of 30FPS being a worthwhile gaming rate.

I get that games have bugs. It's been an issue in gaming back when developers would have to MAIL out new copies of the game. But you can bet a vast majority of the games at least functioned correctly on the surface. They paid people to play the games and try to break them. But this title shipped in a state where.... well, you posted the video: Even someone who's never played a video game should see the issue.

I'm honestly hoping for more shit like this from Ubisoft. Mainly because I don't buy their products at anywhere near launch or the list price. But also because I want to see just how fucking shitty a game they can release will be before morons learn to stop buying them as if anyone gives a damn (other than paid actors in commercials) that you got AssCreed 57: super-ninja edition for a midnight release never having read anything about it.

Why does Ubisoft not want to admit that their developers screwed up ?

You're serious? One of the few devs that would even bother admitting fault was Blizzard. But even though this still seems to hold true for their games, the WoW dev team has been ballsy enough to blame players for the problems with WoD. But that doesn't matter because the WoW team can do whatever and they'll still make cash hand over fist.

I guess Ubisoft still has to maintain the illusion they aren't a 3rd rate developer charging first rate money for their beta products. I'd like to think this is another big slap in the face to the uninformed crowds that pile in the pre-orders, but I'm not giving them any credit this time around.

[Lord Revan]

yeah and the thing is if I buy a console game (I actually own a PS3 so it's not just hypothetical) I expect there to be no Framerate issues since it's not like there's different configs like with PC so you should be able to optimize your console version and not have it drop to 20 or lower FPS, not with an AAA title anyway, I might be more willing to accept low performance from a first game by new developers but Ubisoft isn't a company that's just arrived and this is their 7th or 8th console Assassin's Creed so it's not they've not done it before.

[TheFeniX]

yeah and the thing is if I buy a console game (I actually own a PS3 so it's not just hypothetical) I expect there to be no Framerate issues since it's not like there's different configs like with PC so you should be able to optimize your console version and not have it drop to 20 or lower FPS, not with an AAA title anyway, I might be more willing to accept low performance from a first game by new developers but Ubisoft isn't a company that's just arrived and this is their 7th or 8th console Assassin's Creed so it's not they've not done it before.

FPS drop has always been a thing in closed systems, even going back to Space Invaders (which also pretty much invented the concept of difficulty due to the issue). I can't count the number of consoles games over the years that suffered framerate drops, even going back to the NES like Contra and the flickering associated as the console struggled to draw that many sprites. It wasn't really until the 360 and PS3 that idea came around that consoles somehow offered better performance due to being closed systems. As I've said before: that's mostly because the games were now directly comparable since before the Xbox, there really weren't any competing games between consoles and PC. Any ports, going either way, were almost always terrible.

Even then, FPS drop is a thing on consoles. It happens whether you notice it or not. I remember it all the time in CoD:MW, and numerous other games. Yes, it's easier to develop solely for one set (or 2 depending on the cross-plat) of hardware: but this whole "console's run at rock steady FPS while PCs struggle" has never been true, across any platform I've played on.

[Lord Revan]

yeah and the thing is if I buy a console game (I actually own a PS3 so it's not just hypothetical) I expect there to be no Framerate issues since it's not like there's different configs like with PC so you should be able to optimize your console version and not have it drop to 20 or lower FPS, not with an AAA title anyway, I might be more willing to accept low performance from a first game by new developers but Ubisoft isn't a company that's just arrived and this is their 7th or 8th console Assassin's Creed so it's not they've not done it before.

FPS drop has always been a thing in closed systems, even going back to Space Invaders (which also pretty much invented the concept of difficulty due to the issue). I can't count the number of consoles games over the years that suffered framerate drops, even going back to the NES like Contra and the flickering associated as the console struggled to draw that many sprites. It wasn't really until the 360 and PS3 that idea came around that consoles somehow offered better performance due to being closed systems. As I've said before: that's mostly because the games were now directly comparable since before the Xbox, there really weren't any competing games between consoles and PC. Any ports, going either way, were almost always terrible.

Even then, FPS drop is a thing on consoles. It happens whether you notice it or not. I remember it all the time in CoD:MW, and numerous other games. Yes, it's easier to develop solely for one set (or 2 depending on the cross-plat) of hardware: but this whole "console's run at rock steady FPS while PCs struggle" has never been true, across any platform I've played on.

there's a reason why said issues and not drop, obviously there's gonna be frame rate fluctuation but when it comes so high or frequent that I have to adjust my tactics to counter it on a game where I shouldn't have be worrying about framerate then it becomes an issue

[TheFeniX]

there's a reason why said issues and not drop, obviously there's gonna be frame rate fluctuation but when it comes so high or frequent that I have to adjust my tactics to counter it on a game where I shouldn't have be worrying about framerate then it becomes an issue

I've played more than enough console games where this is an issue. Anyways, it's moot because my wife managed to make a hypocrit out of me in record time. I finally just wanted an Xbone for a blu-ray player and something for the wife to mess around on. While walking into the store I asked: "any games you want to go ahead and get?" "Yea, I want the Assassin's Creed: Unity bundle"

"Are you fucking kidding me? That game has issues, you don't......."
"I want it."

So, guess I'll get to see the trainwreck first hand. Oh yea, she also bought Titanfall...... At least now I can yell at the TV and it will listen.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

At least now I can yell at the TV and it will listen.

Awesome, that's going in my sig.

[bilateralrope]

Ubisoft have decided that with The Crew, instead of having a badly set embargo date, they will just not give out any review copies before launch.

Gamers and car enthusiasts have at least one thing in common: They both like to take things for a test drive. That’s partly why The Crew has hosted four closed betas, allowing numerous players to test out the game while the dev team gathered invaluable feedback to help make the experience even better. Many of you already had a chance to hit the road, test out the gameplay – and are eager to jump back in. We look forward to many more of you trying us out on Xbox One or PlayStation 4 in the open beta starting tomorrow. We can’t wait to see the rest of you again this December.

The Crew

We also know that many of you will be eager to turn to experts for their professional advice. You want to read how the pros feel after their carefully considered road tests of The Crew. While we totally understand (hey, we read reviews, too!), The Crew was built from the beginning to be a living playground full of driving fans, so it’s only possible to assess our game in its entirety with other real players in the world. And by other, we mean thousands and thousands and thousands of players – something that can’t be simulated with a handful of devs playing alongside the press.

For this very reason, The Crew will be available to media to begin their reviews when the game launches on December 2. There will be absolutely no embargo on any type of coverage once the game is available for sale. While we fully anticipate that you might see some reviews immediately at launch – largely built around the preview sessions we facilitated during the past months or the limited content of the closed and open betas – they won’t be based on optimal conditions or reflect the finished game. We sincerely hope everyone will take the time to customize their ride as they progress through all five regions, explore every corner of the map solo and with friends, dive into our competitive and cooperative mechanics, race to the end of the main campaign, choose a Faction and compete with your crew in Factions Wars, and so much more.

The Crew is all about social gameplay. Indeed, it’s as easy to partner with a pair of strangers as it is with your carefully chosen crew, then speed through a variety of missions or challenges in the game’s seamless open world. Even when you’re taking a solitary cruise through one of America’s great cities, you’ll continuously pass by other real-life gamers, all of whom bring The Crew’s America to life.

We look forward to welcoming you all to The Crew’s playground, a living world full of friends and potential rivals, where you’ll never drive alone. The Crew will be available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox 360 and PC on December 2. Meanwhile, be sure to join us in the open beta, which starts tomorrow, November 25.

Take note of their line We also know that many of you will be eager to turn to experts for their professional advice. You want to read how the pros feel after their carefully considered road tests of The Crew. While we totally understand (hey, we read reviews, too!). Their actions here show them to be idiots and/or lying. Because without an embargo to make everyone release their review at the same time, reviewers have a financial incentive to cut corners to get their review out quick, because the longer they take after the first reviews come out the less hits they will get.

So I'm expecting that the early content will be better than the later content, as the early content is all the first reviewers will see. Well, that and the launch issues that come with games with a heavy online component.

[TheFeniX]

I can only assume Ubisoft just doesn't give fucks anymore. Well, at least less than usual. The problem isn't what they are doing makes them scumbags that pray on the uninformed. It's that it's working phenomenally well. Sure, it sets up a situation where even the most idiotic of game buyer could risk finally getting fed up and boycotting the shit out of their games, but it doesn't matter because they got their money and will still have a loyal following of people who just have to fucking have the next installment in whatever they're selling.

There's a reason that (aside from the Unity Bundle the wife had to have) I haven't paid full price for an Ubisoft game since HAWX. Sure, I have to miss out on some games I've heard good things about, like Farcry, but thems the breaks.

I need to ask the wife if she's even messed with Unity yet. I know she's been playing the Pirates AssCreed and yelling "That's fucking BULLSHIT!" a lot while playing Titanfall. I used to have to close the door due to here playing at 200db, but now with her new headset... I have to shut the door to drown out her cursing.

[DaveJB]

For this very reason, The Crew will be available to media to begin their reviews when the game launches on December 2. There will be absolutely no embargo on any type of coverage once the game is available for sale. While we fully anticipate that you might see some reviews immediately at launch – largely built around the preview sessions we facilitated during the past months or the limited content of the closed and open betas – they won’t be based on optimal conditions or reflect the finished game.

That excuse didn't fly when Activision/Bungie tried it for Destiny, why do Ubisoft think it'll work for them?

Still, it certainly explains why so many developers have been talking up the notion of killing off games that are primarily single player, and giving all games a perpetually online element of some sort. Personally I just thought it was so that they could save money on AI programmers, but it'd give them an excuse to never bother with review copies again.

[TheFeniX]

If review sites had any kind of balls, they'd have in big bold print on their sites: X game is not being released for early review, purchase at your own risk.

And the whole online bit is pretty much to fight, and lose to, pirates. Any game that is primarily single-player with online components is hacked almost immediately, sometimes even before release. There have been a few hold-outs. I think Ubisoft had a game or two that was so obtuse in it's DRM, it took hackers a month or two to strip it all out. This was considered a victory, even though it's likely the retail game suffered through a lot of shit since slip-shod DRM tend to work worse than cracked games.

[Mr Bean]

Fun thing I've been seeing about the Crew is that the designers have set their MMO up for failure. It's a racing game and the first six hours of your time (IE the make/break point for most gamers) is spent in cars that can't handle and have no acceleration.


Typically racing games start you out in cars with good handling and okay power so you have time to learn and enough time to notice mistakes then upgrading you to cars with excellent handling and bad acceleration AND/OR cars with poor handling but great acceleration and power before late game you get cars that are great at everything but temperamental.

Or to put it another way... Come play The Crew! Race across the whole United States of America in a used PT Cruiser with gearbox issues that's 9,000 miles past it's oil change! That's right we are not even giving you a Honda Accord level car to tool around in. Suck it racing fans, you must be at least level 20 to drive anything but Lincoln town-cars and old used Volvo station wagons.

[Mr Bean]

Speaking of the Crew

[bilateralrope]

And the whole online bit is pretty much to fight, and lose to, pirates.

Maybe partially. But I see some other reasons that actually work:
- To delay second hand copies becoming available. The longer a game takes to complete, the more time before the person who purchases it sells his copy. So the more people buying new because there aren't second hand copies to buy. Online increases how long a game takes to complete because launch problems do delay the games completion. As do progression systems the players have to grind through.
- If the dev sticks stuff players might want to adjust on servers the dev controls, they can then charge people to change things that would have been previously changed via cheat codes or editing your save file. Or as TotalBiscuit said during his AC Unity video: I used to be able to put in a cheat code. Now I have to put in a credit card.

[TheFeniX]

Maybe partially. But I see some other reasons that actually work:
- To delay second hand copies becoming available. The longer a game takes to complete, the more time before the person who purchases it sells his copy. So the more people buying new because there aren't second hand copies to buy. Online increases how long a game takes to complete because launch problems do delay the games completion. As do progression systems the players have to grind through.

That's such a shitty idea, I wouldn't be surprised if it's true. Considering how cowardly the reviewers are anyways, it's not like they hold launch fuck-ups against the review score. Gotta get that 10/10!!! for your GOTY edition box art.

- If the dev sticks stuff players might want to adjust on servers the dev controls, they can then charge people to change things that would have been previously changed via cheat codes or editing your save file. Or as TotalBiscuit said during his AC Unity video: I used to be able to put in a cheat code. Now I have to put in a credit card.

If they were more technically competent, this might work better. The whole "power of the cloud" ordeal is basically bullshit at this point since none of them can even make a basic functioning game, much less one that can offload processing to the magic of the cloud. They would probably just pull .ini's and shit and figure no one could possibly bypass that.

And cheat codes don't exist because they are leftovers from testing the game, giving developers easy ways to skip around to certain content or test it. But since no one fucking tests anything anymore, why bother? Cheap shots aside, cheat codes were basically dead the second Achievements came around. Steam doesn't give a shit because, I assume, valve knows they're really just a way to keep the crazies busy.

[Metahive]

How can this be? I thought #gamergate had ended all corruption in the videogame industry weeks ago! Boy, am I feeling disillusioned!

[Purple]

And cheat codes don't exist because they are leftovers from testing the game, giving developers easy ways to skip around to certain content or test it. But since no one fucking tests anything anymore, why bother? Cheap shots aside, cheat codes were basically dead the second Achievements came around. Steam doesn't give a shit because, I assume, valve knows they're really just a way to keep the crazies busy.

There is more to that than testing. And you need only look to the way games often have elaborately designed cheat codes to see that. Basically, the cardinal sin of game design is making it so that the player can put him self in a situation that is unwinable. That is why games often restrict you from doing stuff such as dropping quest important items that would put you in a situation where you can't complete the game. Cheat codes allow you a quick and dirty way to let the player fix his own problems if you missed anything. They are also quite a convenient way of preventing player frustration. If you make the game too hard for some people they will fail to complete it and than go cry on your forum and badmouth your game to prospective buyers. So instead you let him have infinite money and such and he can beat the levels he can't otherwise and see the cutscene at the end. He is happy, you are happy. And he is out there telling everyone about your cool cutscene and not about how he can't beat that bloody level.

[bilateralrope]

And cheat codes don't exist because they are leftovers from testing the game, giving developers easy ways to skip around to certain content or test it. But since no one fucking tests anything anymore, why bother? Cheap shots aside, cheat codes were basically dead the second Achievements came around. Steam doesn't give a shit because, I assume, valve knows they're really just a way to keep the crazies busy.

True, cheat codes have been dead for a while. But online games give developers a new option. Make the costs of whatever you buy with ingame currency too high to be reasonably obtained through regular play. If the game was offline, someone would figure out how to mod the save files to cheat for more of the ingame currency. But online prevents that, as the saves are stored elsewhere. Leaving only two options for players, grinding out the currency (legenthing playtime) or pulling out their credit card to pay to cheat.

So if a game does have such microtransactions, can you trust developers not to tweak the balance to encourage the microtransactions ?

[Purple]

So if a game does have such microtransactions, can you trust developers not to tweak the balance to encourage the microtransactions ?

No, we can trust them to do exactly that. I have plaid my fair share of games that work on the microtransaction model and almost always the system was designed to screw you over if you don't pay.

[DaveJB]

Those games are generally free to start playing, even if they're all but impossible to make any progress through without microtransactions. If they started releasing games that cost £40/$60 up-front and then were still virtually unplayable until you started forking over more and more cash, I don't think that'd go over at all well.

[bilateralrope]

It's a matter of degrees. While the extreme end you describe would cause a backlash, I can see people tolerating it to a lesser extent. Especially if it's built up slowly. Worse still, I can see people who will praise the game for the 'difficulty' the grind adds. Because I've seen the same thing any time anyone complains about grind in an MMO.

You need to consider that some gamers will defend almost anything a publisher does. For example Polygon put up an opinion piece titles Ubisoft shipped a broken game you can't return, free DLC doesn't make it right. There are people in the comments defending Ubisoft.
There are always people defending whatever scummy behaviour AAA publishers pull.

[Gaidin]

You need to consider that some gamers will defend almost anything a publisher does. For example Polygon put up an opinion piece titles Ubisoft shipped a broken game you can't return, free DLC doesn't make it right. There are people in the comments defending Ubisoft.
There are always people defending whatever scummy behaviour AAA publishers pull.

Funny thing, I'd pay money to be a fly on the wall during their old "QA" prioritization meetings. Because for the most part their game features(like the Paris Crowds) seem to work. The stuff that I keep mostly seeing in the list of fixed bugs is weird level design stuff that accidentally causes crashes or noticeable frame rate drops, or networking on the new systems, or, well, things like that. I mean, there are exceptions. But it is mostly that. And then you look at the game they didn't do PR for at all until AC: Unity crashed and burned(AC: Rogue)? Works beautifully and is apparently one of their best games yet for both writing and gameplay. It almost smells like unfamiliarity with the new systems, but familiarity with programming theory and the general ability to get games in general to work. Then followed by our corporate overlords rushing the yearly release out the doors. This isn't defending Ubisoft mind you...just...analysis of events.

[bilateralrope]

Does Rogue add anything new to AC ?
If not, that means they had a lot of bugs ironed out by previous AC games. So they wouldn't introduce any new ones.

While Unity added the massive crowds. Which caused problems by making more calls than the DirectX 11 API was designed to support, so things broke. That's not a problem on it's own, new features add new bugs which take time to fix. This is the exact situation where a game should be delayed to fix it. But then someone at Ubisoft decided that they must release on the scheduled release day. Probably someone in PR/marketing, who then topped it all off with the review embargo not lifting till after launch.

All of Ubisoft's problems could be because their PR/marketing section is incompetent, while still being powerful enough to make decisions.