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AC Unity Patch 4 is now rolling out

How does it not show you micro transactions? When you highlight over any equipment piece in the game it very clearly says "HACK" right underneath the purchasing options to pay for micro transactions.

I found myself frequently frustrated that I couldn't look like the character I wanted to be because the game would either lock it behind some late game mission progression, a co-op mission or some absolutely ridiculous price point. But don't worry Vire, you can pay the cool price of 2.99 to get that masquerade mask you wanted with the feather cap.

I just think it's a poor design decision to show you all the best gear in the game from the moment you turn it on, because you constantly thinking in your head while running around town. "I wish I looked like this or could get that".

It's the equivalent of a JRPG showing you the best and coolest gear in the game from the moment you start playing and saying, well you can look like that if you just pay now.

In past Assassin's Creed games, the best options and gear where hidden from you and when you got them - you got them. There wasn't a constant feeling of pressure to upgrade since you didn't know what you were missing out on.

Yeah its bad design for that reason.

I dont use any paid content or bonus content in terms of weapon, gear etc in an RPG like game because 1) it breaks the satisfaction of earning it yourself and 2) it makes the game boring if you can just own a powerul weapon or gear and never have any need to change it during the entire game

the design is bad also because it also lets you predict the future and not care about interim upgrades while saving towards the ultimate gear/weapons. thats part of the fun of RPG's exploring the new options of stuff when you reach a new town/shop or whatever
 

Crossing Eden

Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
How does it not show you micro transactions? When you highlight over any equipment piece in the game it very clearly says "HACK" right underneath the purchasing options to pay for micro transactions.

I found myself frequently frustrated that I couldn't look like the character I wanted to be because the game would either lock it behind some late game mission progression, a co-op mission or some absolutely ridiculous in game currency price point. But don't worry Vire, you can pay the cool price of 2.99 to get that masquerade mask you wanted with the feather cap.

I just think it's a poor design decision to show you all the best gear in the game from the moment you turn it on, because you are constantly thinking in your head while running around town. "I wish I looked like this or could get that". It's the equivalent of a JRPG showing you the best and coolest gear in the game in the menu screen from the moment you start playing and saying, well you can use that now if you just pay.

In past Assassin's Creed games, the best options and gear where hidden from you and when you got them - you got them. There wasn't a constant feeling of pressure to upgrade since you didn't know what you were missing out on.
You never see what the microtransactions are unless you press hack. Once you know what hack leads to you can ignore it for the rest of the game and just play naturally. Why would you be able to be an OP level character at the start or even at the halfway point of the game if you were to play normally, (as in without exploits like replaying heists), and use the in-game money to upgrade? And in past AC games the game made revealed more armor pieces and weapon pieces over time while hiding the best armor behind a side quest that usually involved collecting something. They revealed more weapons and armor overtime in shops but weapons were very negligible outside of looking cooler while armor gave you more health. The progression in Unity is based on how much time you spend actually playing the content that's in the game, like co-op, Paris Stories etc. Some of which give out more than 25K. I also recall the only outfit being locked behind story progression being the tailored outfit.
 
I forgot how much I hate how slow and annoying xbox one is in terms of updates

I have to get this update to 100% to play the game right? does it have one of those "you can play the first level" that some games have (eg forza 5) or is that only new game installs and not upgrades?

I plan on starting game again anyway...
 

Scrabble

Member
I explained why I really wasn't having much fun in the game here, but I'll elaborate a bit.

The stop and start pacing and rushed character development certainly don't help the game's flow, but it goes beyond that. Not only is the actual story paper thin in terms of plot, but in past (and the best) Assassin's Creed games, they weren't afraid to have a little levity along the way. This game starts out well enough... with the first three acts or so having a similar tone and style to Assassin's Creed 2, but after a key moment in the game - Arno turns into an insufferable ultra self serious character with little emotion and feelings beyond "THEY MUST DIE".

While the general feeling of parkour I think has been improved (the controlled descent being a nice addition for sure), animations tend to be incredibly hitchy in ways that were not present in past Assassin's games. Similarly, Paris while beautiful, after a while also tends to feel very monotonous. I think the orange burnt sunlight that so frequently appears in the game just tends to make everything else look the same.

I also don't particularly like the progression of gear compared to previous entries. For most of the first half of the game, it shows you all the incredible gear you can't have and tries to tempt you to use micro transactions to get them.

But if I had to really pinpoint the thing that bothers me most about the game, I really think the story is incredibly uninteresting and the host of technical issues definitely detract greatly from the experience.

From the beginning I was actually afraid Arno was just going to be another Ezio, and was relieved when he started becoming his own character. And ya, I guess Arno is self serious. Not every game protagonist needs to have the same devil may care attitude, be ultra charismatic and crack jokes all the way through the story line to have a personality or display emotion. Real people aren't like that. Ezio was an awesome character, but fuck can we please move on from that archetype please? I find Arno to be a much better character than Edward at the least, and the story so far to be pretty good. Much better than ACIV anyway.
 

Vire

Member
Yeah its bad design for that reason.

I dont use any paid content or bonus content in terms of weapon, gear etc in an RPG like game because 1) it breaks the satisfaction of earning it yourself and 2) it makes the game boring if you can just own a powerul weapon or gear and never have any need to change it during the entire game

the design is bad also because it also lets you predict the future and not care about interim upgrades while saving towards the ultimate gear/weapons. thats part of the fun of RPG's exploring the new options of stuff when you reach a new town/shop or whatever

Yep! I think that's a nice point to add on to what I mentioned.
From the beginning I was actually afraid Arno was just going to be another Ezio, and was relieved when he started becoming his own character. And ya, I guess Arno is self serious. Not every game protagonist needs to have the same devil may care attitude, be ultra charismatic and crack jokes all the way through the story line to have a personality or display emotion. Real people aren't like that. Ezio was an awesome character, but fuck can we please move on from that archetype please? I find Arno to be a much better character than Edward at the least, and the story so far to be pretty good. Much better than ACIV anyway.

I'm not asking for Arno to be Ezio 2.0. I'm asking him to be interesting, as I mentioned - he becomes as one dimensional as main protagonists come as the game progresses. I'd even argue that Conner is a better character because at least he had principles that guided him and had a somewhat interesting dynamic between his father and himself. Mind you, this is coming from someone who greatly disliked AC3.
 

martino

Member
DF did their analysis with the consoles being offline, too.

And ? did they mention 60 fps ? no because in irrelevant context...i put must faith in df on that than a youtuber and even more given the overall tone of the video and its conclusion on several effect (probably a networked effect)
 

chadskin

Member
And ? did they mention 60 fps ? no because in irrelevant context...i put must faith in df on that than a youtuber and even more given the overall tone of the video and its conclusion on several effect (probably a networked effect)

DF did their tests only WITH the day 1 patch applied as opposed to the guy on the YouTube video who said he played it WITHOUT the day 1 patch AND WITH the day 1 patch.

And he recommended to play the game on PS4 WITHOUT the day 1 patch because according to him it's in general smoother than WITH the day 1 patch.
 

woen

Member
Man those last 2 paragraphs just killed it for me.

Microtransactions? Really? The only ones I can remember for Black Flag were ship supplies, which I never felt were needed as I racked up quite a bit by just playing the game. My ship is already almost maxed

The micro-transactions aren't needed for the progression in AC:U. You have to wisely chose the weapons or outfits you want, especially if you don't do any side mission or coop mission (heists gives you lots of money). But you can easily have what you want compared to your level (not the best weapon during the first 5 hours for instance) throughout the game. (lvl 1 > lvl 2 > lvl 3 etc., or you can save for lvl 3, buy 3 lvl 1 instead, do 3 heists missions to have a complete lvl 3 set...)

People complained before that the money was easy, now that it is less broken and gives you incentive to do the side quests, you have other people or the same people complaining about the progression. It's not about microtransactions, it's about a progressive path you take, a game design choice. And it works, it's challenging, you want to complete the missions and you're rewarded for this.
 

Mononoke

Banned
The micro-transactions aren't needed for the progression in AC:U. You have to wisely chose the weapons or outfits you want, especially if you don't do any side mission or coop mission (heists gives you lots of money). But you can easily have what you want compared to your level (not the best weapon during the first 5 hours for instance) throughout the game. (lvl 1 > lvl 2 > lvl 3 etc., or you can save for lvl 3, buy 3 lvl 1 instead, do 3 heists missions to have a complete lvl 3 set...)

People complained before that the money was easy, now that it is less broken and gives you incentive to do the side quests, you have other people or the same people complaining about the progression. It's not about microtransactions, it's about a progressive path you take, a game design choice. And it works, it's challenging, you want to complete the missions and you're rewarded for this.

Is getting money easy?

Microtransactions are a problem when the game is designed around it. So in this case if I. Money in side quests is hard to get. II. The price of items is ridiculously high.

Is that the case here? Do side missions give you enough money, and are items priced to high it takes forever?

If the answer is yes, then microtransactions are surely a problem. Even IF they re-vamped the system to fix past problems. Not saying it is. I'm only 30% into the game, and tbh haven't been focusing on buying things. So I'm not sure what the side mission for money + the prices really are (especially together).
 
Is getting money easy?

Once you start investing in your cafe thing it's pretty steady but some items are super expensive to restock. And there's billions of things to buy so if you want to get all the weapons and armors and such you'll burn through your cash real fast.
 

Mononoke

Banned
Once you start investing in your cafe thing it's pretty steady but some items are super expensive to restock. And there's billions of things to buy so if you want to get all the weapons and armors and such you'll burn through your cash real fast.

Hmmm. So it's kind of hard to tell if the design was made around micro-transactions or not in this case. I mean, I'm not sure Ubisoft deserves that benefit of the doubt lol.

I guess if money isn't like insanely hard to get, and there is like a ton of things you can buy....doesn't sound that bad? I mean it sounds like you basically burn through cash fast since the items are priced high, but you are also able to get a lot of stuff. There is just like too much stuff to buy for the money to possibly cover it. Hmm.
 
I found money was pretty easy to come by in ACU. If you want more make sure you do the café theatre missions. Doing the final one gives you posters for the café and you get like 40-50k pretty quickly. Also should mention there's more smaller cafes to renovate on the map, do a few of those and the money rolls in.
 

Scrabble

Member
Yep! I think that's a nice point to add on to what I mentioned.


I'm not asking for Arno to be Ezio 2.0. I'm asking him to be interesting, as I mentioned - he becomes as one dimensional as main protagonists come as the game progresses. I'd even argue that Conner is a better character because at least he had principles that guided him and had a somewhat interesting dynamic between his father and himself. Mind you, this is coming from someone who greatly disliked AC3.

Well Connor's my favorite Assassin in the series, and one of my favorite protagonists in any game, so we just have widely varying opinions on what makes a character interesting. Why is Arno not interesting? How is he one dimensional? When I think of one dimensional video game protagonists who show no emotion I think of whoever the fuck is in Shadow of Mordor. For the first five hours I didn't even know his name and I've already forgotten it. Or Sam Fisher in Black List. Just saying

Arno turns into an insufferable ultra self serious character with little emotion and feelings beyond "THEY MUST DIE".

isn't really criticism on account of how simplistic and boiled down it is. I can do the same thing with Tony Soprano and make him seem like the most one note uninteresting character in fiction if I wanted to. Saying Arno has little emotion also just seems misleading from what I've seen. There are countless moments where he's arguing with people, caught between conflicting points of view, cracking a joke or two, etc. He's a believable and grounded character, who shows as much emotion as he needed to. Granted I generally prefer characters who are more stoic and reserved, than those who are flamboyant and ultra charismatic with an exuberant personality.
 

Mononoke

Banned
I found money was pretty easy to come by in ACU. If you want more make sure you do the café theatre missions. Doing the final one gives you posters for the café and you get like 40-50k pretty quickly. Also should mention there's more smaller cafes to renovate on the map, do a few of those and the money rolls in.

Well that's good to know. Thanks for the heads up.
 

Vire

Member
Well Connor's my favorite Assassin in the series, and one of my favorite protagonists in any game, so we just have widely varying opinions on what makes a character interesting. Why is Arno not interesting? How is he one dimensional? When I think of one dimensional video game protagonists who show no emotion I think of whoever the fuck is in Shadow of Mordor. For the first five hours I didn't even know his name and I've already forgotten it. Or Sam Fisher in Black List. Just saying



isn't really criticism on account of how simplistic and boiled down it is. I can do the same thing with Tony Soprano and make him seem like the most one note uninteresting character in fiction if I wanted to. Saying Arno has little emotion also just seems misleading from what I've seen. There are countless moments where he's arguing with people, caught between conflicting points of view, cracking a joke or two, etc. He's a believable and grounded character, who shows as much emotion as he needed to. Granted I generally prefer characters who are more stoic and reserved, than those who are flamboyant and ultra charismatic with an exuberant personality.

There's just no real reason to root for Arno and his struggle isn't relatable or empathetic.
They don't establish the relationship he had with his adopted father at all so it's hard to feel that upset that he even got the axe in the first place. If they had spent more time explaining why his adopted father meant so much to him, I would possibly feel more bothered to continue his plight. It seems like more than anything, he's just upset because the situation distances himself from Elise and now he can't get any.

Arno comes off as incredibly prissy, whiny and generally unpleasant to be around. A potentially interesting character in Marquis de Sad who has plenty of quirks and ticks to him is absolutely squandered because he has no one to develop a natural rapport with. It feels like he's conferring back and forth to a petulant teenager. It may be the line reading or just the script itself, but I feel the performance is incredibly one-note in tone and rather annoying.

What exactly is appealing about his character?
 

twobear

sputum-flecked apoplexy
Combat in this game is awful. Whatever people did want them to change about ACIV's combat, I doubt they wanted this.
 

UrbanRats

Member
Once you start investing in your cafe thing it's pretty steady but some items are super expensive to restock. And there's billions of things to buy so if you want to get all the weapons and armors and such you'll burn through your cash real fast.

I just do the heist on the top left of the map solo, over and over, until the first chest i open is the right one.
 

Vire

Member
Combat in this game is awful. Whatever people did want them to change about ACIV's combat, I doubt they wanted this.

I think they saw the methodical nature of the Souls series and were like "hey let's go in that direction" - without realizing anything that made that combat great in the first place.

This is on the lower list of my complaints though because the combat in the AC games has never been good.
 

twobear

sputum-flecked apoplexy
I think they saw the methodical nature of the Souls series and were like "hey let's go in that direction" - without realizing anything that made that combat great in the first place.

This is on the lower list of my complaints though because the combat in the AC games has never been good.

It's never been great but in this game it's an exercise in frustration. As soon as you see more than three guards you need to run, but good luck making it, because they'll probably just all start shooting you instead.
 

jackdoe

Member
It's never been great but in this game it's an exercise in frustration. As soon as you see more than three guards you need to run, but good luck making it, because they'll probably just all start shooting you instead.
That's the thing with this game. If you stick only to story missions, you'll find that your armor quickly becomes obsolete and you die quickly. Your only option is to buy the clothing with higher health values. Only problem is you need cash. So you can take care of some of those tedious side missions, upgrade the theater and idle in the game while you make money, or go through microtransactions to get the armor you need.
 

twobear

sputum-flecked apoplexy
That's the thing with this game. If you stick only to story missions, you'll find that your armor quickly becomes obsolete and you die quickly. Your only option is to buy the clothing with higher health values. Only problem is you need cash. So you can take care of some of those tedious side missions, upgrade the theater and idle in the game while you make money, or go through microtransactions to get the armor you need.

I have legendary gear and I still find combat frustrating ;/
 

Crossing Eden

Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
There's just no real reason to root for Arno and his struggle isn't relatable or empathetic.
They don't establish the relationship he had with his adopted father at all so it's hard to feel that upset that he even got the axe in the first place. If they had spent more time explaining why his adopted father meant so much to him, I would possibly feel more bothered to continue his plight. It seems like more than anything, he's just upset because the situation distances himself from Elise and now he can't get any.

Arno comes off as incredibly prissy, whiny and generally unpleasant to be around. A potentially interesting character in Marquis de Sad who has plenty of quirks and ticks to him is absolutely squandered because he has no one to develop a natural rapport with. It feels like he's conferring back and forth to a petulant teenager. It may be the line reading or just the script itself, but I feel the performance is incredibly one-note in tone and rather annoying.

What exactly is appealing about his character?
I happen to like his no nonsense yet sarcastic way of talking. And his passive aggressive way of making jokes.

http://a.pomf.se/eclbpa.webm

He and the characters in general go for what's generally more subtle humor, that includes a lot of jabs at the series and overall tropes. That and his flirting with Elise, who's basically his second half. I think Ubi yet again wanted to avoid one of the biggest criticisms of AC3 and get the child sequence out of the way. I frankly would love even more story cutscenes and play segments. I wish Unity would get a sequel since I feel that it would include flashback missions like in brotherhood.
 

Vire

Member
I happen to like his no nonsense yet sarcastic way of talking. And his passive aggressive way of making jokes.

tumblr_ngjk4tZwPL1smab9go2_500.gif

tumblr_ngjk4tZwPL1smab9go3_500.gif

tumblr_ngjk4tZwPL1smab9go4_r2_500.gif


He and the characters in general go for what's generally more subtle humor, that includes a lot of jabs at the series and overall tropes.
Your gifs actually perfectly typifies why I don't like the character. He's a giant stick in the mud who passive aggressively snips back at other potential allies and friends. His holier than thou attitude about nearly everything is incredibly grating.

Not exactly sure why that is appealing, but whatever floats your boat I guess.
 

Crossing Eden

Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
Your gifs actually perfectly typifies why I don't like the character. He's a giant stick in the mud who passive aggressively snips back at other potential allies and friends. His holier than thou attitude about nearly everything is incredibly grating.

Not exactly sure why that is appealing, but whatever floats your boat I guess.
It's just good humor to me. It's also a good foil to how he acts with Elise, his whole playful ex-boyfriend act with her is fun to watch imo. Like the whole
Hot air balloon chase scene where he jokes about laughing as she crashes into the river when she tells him to hurry up.
 

Scrabble

Member
There's just no real reason to root for Arno and his struggle isn't relatable or empathetic.
They don't establish the relationship he had with his adopted father at all so it's hard to feel that upset that he even got the axe in the first place. If they had spent more time explaining why his adopted father meant so much to him, I would possibly feel more bothered to continue his plight. It seems like more than anything, he's just upset because the situation distances himself from Elise and now he can't get any.

Arno comes off as incredibly prissy, whiny and generally unpleasant to be around. A potentially interesting character in Marquis de Sad who has plenty of quirks and ticks to him is absolutely squandered because he has no one to develop a natural rapport with. It feels like he's conferring back and forth to a petulant teenager. It may be the line reading or just the script itself, but I feel the performance is incredibly one-note in tone and rather annoying.

What exactly is appealing about his character?

I haven't beaten the game so my opinion could change, but I think he's probably the most relatable protagonist the series has had. He's not so steeped in discipline and order like Altair, not the perfect and overly likable Ezio, not as serious as Connor, and not the Han Solo devil may care type character like Edward. I mean he's just like every other dude whose ever wanted pussy, only to then get wrapped up in a conflict where he's just looking for a way to make things normal so he can get pussy. He's got a dry sense of humor that's made me smile or laugh on occasion, and he's routinely telling people his thoughts and opinions even if it's putting him in a bad position. His no nonsense attitude is refreshing in a medium where everyone is afraid to make a character that isn't either the rouge anti hero badass, or the overly likable and charismatic perfect good dude.
 

Scrabble

Member
It's never been great but in this game it's an exercise in frustration. As soon as you see more than three guards you need to run, but good luck making it, because they'll probably just all start shooting you instead.

It's not good in terms of action game standards, but I think it does a good job of incentivizing you to avoid combat, at least early on anyway. Guards with guns are brutal and frustrating as fuck, but isn't that how it should be? Before you'd just be waiting for each enemy to take turns, do the counter kill, rinse and repeat till the 10+ guards are dead. I'm much more on my toes and forced to be constantly aware of what's around me now, because if you just wait around casually they punish you by firing on your ass.
 

Vire

Member
It's not good in terms of action game standards, but I think it does a good job of incentivizing you to avoid combat, at least early on anyway. Guards with guns are brutal and frustrating as fuck, but isn't that how it should be? Before you'd just be waiting for each enemy to take turns, do the counter kill, rinse and repeat till the 10+ guards are dead. I'm much more on my toes and forced to be constantly aware of what's around me now, because if you just wait around casually they punish you by firing on your ass.

One of the problems with this is that the stealth is largely dependent on gear rather than actual skill. Which I think is a huge design mistake in general.

For whatever reason, Ubisoft thought it would be a great idea if a guard could see you from a mile away if you don't consistently upgrade your gear. This leads to often frustrating encounters where you are heavily outmatched and swarmed with guards shooting pistols with laser accuracy at you from balconies and rooftops.

I feel like in some situations the exclamation point will light up above a guards head rather unfairly even if I took great precaution to stay out of sight. Instead the game just rewards you for plopping down the cash and getting an outfit that has improved Stealth statistics.

Dumb.
 

Crossing Eden

Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
One of the problems with this is that the stealth is largely dependent on gear rather than actual skill. Which I think is a huge design mistake in general.

For whatever reason, Ubisoft thought it would be a great idea if a guard could see you from a mile away if you don't consistently upgrade your gear. This leads to often frustrating encounters where you are heavily outmatched and swarmed with guards shooting pistols with laser accuracy at you from balconies and rooftops.

I feel like in some situations the exclamation point will light up above a guards head rather unfairly even if I took great precaution to stay out of sight. Instead the game just rewards you for plopping down the cash and getting an outfit that has improved Stealth statistics.

Dumb.
If a person is investing in a tank build with heavy weapons, armors, etc why would they be able to stealth as good as my stealth build and vice versa. And wouldn't it make sense for you to be having trouble if you aren't upgrading your equipment or at least equipping the free equipment that the story gives you overtime?
 

Scrabble

Member
One of the problems with this is that the stealth is largely dependent on gear rather than actual skill. Which I think is a huge design mistake in general.

For whatever reason, Ubisoft thought it would be a great idea if a guard could see you from a mile away if you don't consistently upgrade your gear. This leads to often frustrating encounters where you are heavily outmatched and swarmed with guards shooting pistols with laser accuracy at you from balconies and rooftops.

I feel like in some situations the exclamation point will light up above a guards head rather unfairly even if I took great precaution to stay out of sight. Instead the game just rewards you for plopping down the cash and getting an outfit that has improved Stealth statistics.

Dumb.

I learned early on that the first thing to do is just examine and take out any snipers. Any area i'm asked to infiltrate into, I'll just spend ten minutes or so scouting the location and make note of where the snipers are, and make them my priority. It still doesn't make it easy though, but I like that. Also the yellow indicator that tells you you've been spotted, really isn't any different than the indicator used in Far Cry. Even if you're spotted, you usually have plenty of time to relocate and plan again. I think it's just the guards audibly signalling you've been spotted which makes it so frustrating sometimes. It psychologically tells the player they failed, even if they aren't in that discovered red state.
 

Vire

Member
I learned early on that the first thing to do is just examine and take out any snipers. Any area i'm asked to infiltrate into, I'll just spend ten minutes or so scouting the location and make note of where the snipers are, and make them my priority. It still doesn't make it easy though, but I like that. Also the yellow indicator that tells you you've been spotted, really isn't any different than the indicator used in Far Cry. Even if you're spotted, you usually have plenty of time to relocate and plan again. I think it's just the guards audibly signalling you've been spotted which makes it so frustrating sometimes. It psychologically tells the player they failed, even if they aren't in that discovered red state.

Right, I agree with this 100%. Even though I didn't get caught persay, I still feel like I didn't execute in the way I should have and the game is continually slapping me on the wrist because of it. Many times I took great pains to try and remain undetected, only for some ridiculous spotting that no one could possibly actually see in real life. Executing perfectly is something that I actually have always felt great satisfaction in doing in all of the Assassin's Creed games, which is also why I try and do the optional objectives.

All previous Assassin's Creed games, any stealth mechanic was tied to how good the player was at navigating the environment and smartly approaching the situation. Now it's largely based on how much an arbitrary stealth statistical number is raised. I just don't possibly see how anyone thought this was a good idea.

This is compounded by the fact that being discovered is all the more punishing now because you can't simply fight your way out of any situation as mentioned above.
 

HowZatOZ

Banned
So what is the performance like for PC with this new patch? As I said in the other thread I'm looking to grab this on PC for something like $27 so don't mind if it isn't top notch but I'm always a sucker for AC titles.
 
So what is the performance like for PC with this new patch? As I said in the other thread I'm looking to grab this on PC for something like $27 so don't mind if it isn't top notch but I'm always a sucker for AC titles.

PC patch is not out yet. Should be anytime this week.
 

Dez

Member
So what is the performance like for PC with this new patch? As I said in the other thread I'm looking to grab this on PC for something like $27 so don't mind if it isn't top notch but I'm always a sucker for AC titles.

You will struggle to hit 60 fps locked on most rigs, even a single 980. Using adaptive vsync at half refresh rate (30hz) gives a very stable (aka cinematic) framerate at 1080p. Not sure how much the patch will improve things.
 

ZeroX03

Banned
I've played a bit more and the combat is still terrible. Baffles me as to how this patch could make it even worse but somehow they accomplished. Just fucking copy Arkham if you can't get anything right Ubisoft.

I found myself frequently frustrated that I couldn't look like the character I wanted to be because the game would either lock it behind some late game mission progression, a co-op mission or some absolutely ridiculous in game currency price point. But don't worry Vire, you can pay the cool price of 2.99 to get that masquerade mask you wanted with the feather cap.

Just going to point out that past the half way mark in this game everything is dirt cheap. Invest in cafe theater for money and Assassin Points for upgrades come easy too. The only thing that takes a long time is the sync points. This game is poorly balanced for microtransactions, it hands everything to you.
 
All previous Assassin's Creed games, any stealth mechanic was tied to how good the player was at navigating the environment and smartly approaching the situation. Now it's largely based on how much an arbitrary stealth statistical number is raised. I just don't possibly see how anyone thought this was a good idea.

This is compounded by the fact that being discovered is all the more punishing now because you can't simply fight your way out of any situation as mentioned above.

No it wasn't.

There wasn't any kind of stealth in the previous AC titles and I can not see how you think those titles were better in that department against Unity unless you think hiding in bushes and stealthily grabbing an enemy without being spotted is stealth for you.

Just because it was easier does not make it better.
 

valkyre

Member
Is the framerate improvement significant or not? I know there are still moments were the game dips, but are these moments limited compared to pre patch? Does the game run most of the time at 30ish frames per sec?
 

ZeroX03

Banned
No it wasn't.

There wasn't any kind of stealth in the previous AC titles and I can not see how you think those titles were better in that department against Unity unless you think hiding in bushes and stealthily grabbing an enemy without being spotted is stealth for you.

Just because it was easier does not make it better.

In the case of previous Assassin's Creed games, it actually does. Making a game arbitrarily harder by pumping up the numbers or speed doesn't make it better - see: Arkham Origins - and in the case of Unity just adds to the frustration more than anything. The other games didn't waste your time by forcing you to grind out combat skills or equipment or make enemies take twice as long to kill with greater HP bars and longer animations.
 

Scrabble

Member
In the case of previous Assassin's Creed games, it actually does. Making a game arbitrarily harder by pumping up the numbers or speed doesn't make it better - see: Arkham Origins - and in the case of Unity just adds to the frustration more than anything. The other games didn't waste your time by forcing you to grind out combat skills or equipment or make enemies take twice as long to kill with greater HP bars and longer animations.

Get good, this is the kind of difficulty AC has needed since the series began. I'm looking forward to ditching the upgrades and just sticking to Arno's default outfit on subsequent playthroughs for an even greater challange.
 

ZeroX03

Banned
Get good, this is the kind of difficulty AC has needed since the series began. I'm looking forward to ditching the upgrades and just sticking to Arno's default outfit on subsequent playthroughs for an even greater challange.

Excuse me while I S-Rank Revengeance and Pure Platinum Bayo 2, it's not about the game being hard at all it's about it being poorly designed. It's not about being difficult at all, it's frustrating because of unnecessary burdens, so how about you get good at basic reading comprehension.

The difference between a Platinum title or something like Arkham Asylum and City (not Origins) is good combat design. Unity doesn't have it. That's not even including all the strange glitches.
 
Making a game arbitrarily harder by pumping up the numbers or speed doesn't make it better - see: Arkham Origins

AO is the best combat of the series because of that actually. Challenge was desperately needed. They could do a better job of implementing it in the next game, but as they stand right now I'll take AO over the other two any day of the week for combat mechanics.
 

ZeroX03

Banned
AO is the best combat of the series because of that actually. Challenge was desperately needed.

Origins is absolutely not the best. Not even close. They fucked up the timing on a bunch of stuff, it's way more prone to glitchy behavior. They sped up some animations without compensating for it on other places which led to the removal of any sort of flow in combat. Not to mention basic things like aiming for enemies based on the direction of your stick and camera had issues. I'm surprised someone who's played as much Arkham as you would consider it the best, because it was an absolute mess compared to what came beforehand, even if technically more difficult. There was no incentive to go for variation or gadget bonuses because enemies attacking faster made it riskier when a single attack into jump would always be the superior option.

If you want challenges do the Asylum rooms without upgrades. Unity and Origins both have the same problem as mistaking turning the stats on enemies up for challenge without balancing first. It's a horrendous practice and something Platinum does so much better.


I can't even play Origins a second game because of how badly WB Montreal butchered the combat. I also have no idea how anyone could beat I Am The Night mode, even if you don't die in combat I died at least 5 times to things like falling through the ground.
 

Louis010

Banned
AO is the best combat of the series because of that actually. Challenge was desperately needed. They could do a better job of implementing it in the next game, but as they stand right now I'll take AO over the other two any day of the week for combat mechanics.

Jesus. I know everybody is entitled to their own opinions.... But this....
 
I'm looking forward to picking up Unity for $10 used someday soon. It's great they finally patched it but no way will I reward this kind of shoddy work.
 
Origins is absolutely not the best. Not even close. They fucked up the timing on a bunch of stuff, it's way more prone to glitchy behavior. They sped up some animations without compensating for it on other places which led to the removal of any sort of flow in combat. Not to mention basic things like aiming for enemies based on the direction of your stick and camera had issues. I'm surprised someone who's played as much Arkham as you would consider it the best, because it was an absolute mess compared to what came beforehand, even if technically more difficult. There was no incentive to go for variation or gadget bonuses because enemies attacking faster made it riskier when a single attack into jump would always be the superior option.

You're speaking as though I didn't experience any issues or notice the differences - I certainly did. After a couple of fumbles early on I got the hang of the new timings and I really, really enjoyed the challenge the game added. Like I said, it's not nearly perfect, and needs significant work. But I think it's on the right track. The harsher timings and more responsive enemies (much more eager to attack in waves and simultaneously), plus additional enemy types make it my favorite game of the series in terms of combat, even despite the short comings.

The story and voice cast are both unexpectedly good, but unfortunately it's a buggy game in general. Reallll buggy. I ran into several major issues, even in the Mr Freeze DLC that came out months later. Those are what kept it from being my unambiguous favorite.
 
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